Last night the SNP wrote to the Met Police asking them to investigate the Tories for failing to properly declare their election battle buses. Let he who is without sin cast the first stone…

Back during the election campaign, the SNP used a helicopter to fly Nicola Sturgeon around Scotland. This was declared as part of the SNP’s national spend, which would be fine so long as Nicola only used it for national campaigning, limited to talking about the SNP’s policies and why voters should back her party as a whole. Yet Sturgeon used her chopper specifically to campaign for local candidates as well – for example Peter Grant in Glenrothes, Stephen Gethins in North East Fife, and Drew Hendry in Inverness. The Electoral Commission tells Guido that if a party leader travels to campaign on behalf of a local candidate, some of the travel costs should be declared as local spend:

“If the travel promotes both the local candidate and national policies, then a portion of the cost of that bus should be allocated towards the candidate’s spending limit and a portion towards the party’s national spending limit.”

Sturgeon’s helicopter visited 12 constituencies and was used for local campaigning, so according to the rules some of the cost should have been declared as local spend. It wasn’t. Drew Hendry and Callum Kerr became MPs but would have bust their limits if they’d declared the chopper. Bold of them to call the cops…

UPDATE: An SNP spokesman responds:

“Unlike the Tories the SNP did not transport and pay hotel costs for party activists in marginal seats. Transporting the party leader around the country is national campaign expenditure and the SNP correctly registered it as such with the Electoral Commission.”

But the Electoral Commission say that if a leader did any local campaigning, as Sturgeon did, the cost should be split…