Our latest investigation has found the financial rewards of Scotland’s energy transition are being unevenly distributed. The money earned by landowners often dwarfs the payments that wind farm developers make to local communities.
Conservative candidate Meghan Gallacher made the claim in a special education debate hosted by the BBC.
The Ferret did a deep dive into the Electoral Commission’s donation records to find out who was funding Scotland's political parties.
Nicola Sturgeon’s arrest on Sunday led to a media storm, as Scotland’s most high-profile politician was taken into custody by police.
Images posted on social media claimed to show a picture of the former first minister in the back of a police car, with comments suggesting this had been taken after Sturgeon’s arrest.
Ferret Fact Service looked at this claim and found it False.
Nicola Sturgeon was arrested by Police Scotland on 11 June, as part of the investigation into the SNP’s finances called Operation Branchform. She is the third figure in the party to be arrested as part of the probe, after her husband Peter Murrell and former treasurer Colin Beattie.
The home outside Glasgow shared by Murrell and Sturgeon was also searched in April, as well as the SNP’s headquarters.
Hours after she was taken into custody on Sunday morning, a picture began to circulate showing the Glasgow Southside MSP apparently photographed inside a police car.
The image was shared thousands of times across Twitter and other platforms.
However, it has been digitally altered.
The original image was taken in April 2017 by photographer John Linton, and has appeared regularly in media since then. It shows Sturgeon leaving the first minister’s residence at Bute House in Edinburgh while she was first minister. Other images from the same series show her getting into the car.
There are other telltale signs in the doctored image, including rain on the window on which the image of Sturgeon has been superimposed.
In a statement, a spokeswoman for Sturgeon said the MSP had been arrested and questioned “by arrangement with Police Scotland”.
The widely-shared image of Nicola Sturgeon allegedly in the back seat of a police car after being arrested has been digitally altered. The original image of the former first minister was taken in 2017 in a ministerial car.
Photo credit: Andrew Cowan/Scottish Parliament
Conservative candidate Meghan Gallacher made the claim in a special education debate hosted by the BBC.
The Ferret did a deep dive into the Electoral Commission’s donation records to find out who was funding Scotland's political parties.
High end dinners are a fraction of over 29,000 lobbying meetings in the last parliamentary term. But campaigners argue that because the lobbying spend is not declared, their significance is underplayed.
First Minister John Swinney made the claim in an SNP election leaflet
