The SNP’s Westminster group say they’ve snuck in under the wire with their audited accounts ahead of their deadline today, meaning they are now likely to receive the £1.2 million in Short Money to pay staff. Talk about cutting it close. The deadline was midnight tonight…

The group’s last auditors quit back in September following a “review of [their] client portfolio“, although the news wasn’t made public until last month, around the time the party’s treasurer was arrested and police started sniffing around Nicola Sturgeon’s garden. Humza Yousaf and Stephen Flynn say they didn’t know about the financial crisis for months either. 

Now the Westminster group’s treasurer Peter Grant MP has confirmed the annual return “has received a clean audit certificate and has been submitted, on time, to the parliamentary authorities”. Despite the “challenging” deadline, AMS Group Accountants have signed off the SNP’s books. A miracle considering they couldn’t file their own confirmation statement on time…