LET’S say I do you a favour. I help secure a business deal or set up a key meeting. Things go according to plan: your business deal succeeds; your meeting happens. Sometime later you send £30,000 to my wife, or someone close to me.

What’s happened there? What would you call that?

Put it another way. I’m a journalist. Let’s pretend you own a big company. I write a story that helps you - it says how great your firm is, maybe. Sometime later you send £30,000 to a media company connected to me.

What’s happened there? What would you call that?

Let’s move on to the SNP’s Westminster leader Stephen Flynn and a £30,000 donation his local party branch received after he lobbied Scottish Government ministers on behalf of an energy firm operating in his patch.

SNP, Labour, Tories: politicians have no idea about our lives

Here’s the background: in October 2023, Flynn emailed energy minister Gillian Martin concerning the Green Volt scheme, a plan for a huge wind farm off the Aberdeenshire coast by the company Flotation Energy.

Flynn forwarded correspondence he’d received from Flotation Energy seeking “a ministerial meeting to break consent logjam”.

Flynn wrote to Martin: “Please see below correspondence regarding the Green Volt project. I’d be grateful if Scottish Government officials could review the information below and, if appropriate, arrange contact with those involved to discuss these matters further. No detailed response is required just confirmation the below is receiving attention.”

Martin’s assistant private secretary forwarded the email to officials in the Scottish Government’s correspondence unit. Martin was copied........

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