Top Tweets for #DougList

“According to the Sunday Mail, Ross’s team have identified 28 claims he made to Westminister while carrying out work as a football referee after he had *already* been confronted about possible rule-breaking. The findings have only recently come to light after the fallout over Ross replacing his sick colleague David Duguid to stand in his constituency of Banff and Buchan last week. A senior Tory source revealed to the Sunday Mail the team discussed the travel claims when contacted by journalists but hoped nobody would pick them up. Ross apparently billed the taxpayer for flights between London to Glasgow and Edinburgh, where he was working as an SFA linesman. Only travel from an MP’s declared home airport, which in Ross’s case who was the MP for Moray would be Inverness or Aberdeen, can be claimed as constituency travel. The expense watchdog, Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority (IPSA), were led to believe that Ross was returning to his Moray constituency. However, the claims were all wrongly classed as “London-constituency” with IPSA. Ross’s team identified the 28 expenses where he wrongly used parliamentary-funded travel for his refereeing work after he was first asked questions about the expenses by journalists in 2021. The Sunday Mail also said a senior Tory source revealed Ross’s team had discussed the travel claims when contacted by the newspaper’s journalists, but hoped nobody would pick them up. The team had in fact identified multiple cases where the 41-year-old had combined parliamentary travel with linesman work or claims for parking while refereeing for the SFA on expenses. According to the Sunday Mail, a party insider said: “The latest antics from Douglas are a disgrace and he should be ashamed of himself. He has always wanted to stay at Westminster and he’s completely screwed over a hard-working colleague to get there. Many of us are disgusted with it.” The SNP said: “This revelation will come as no surprise after the recent shameful behaviour of Douglas Ross, however further scrutiny is clearly needed. He needs to urgently explain whether he has been using taxpayer money to pay his expenses for his third job as a linesman.” #VoteSNP24