The SNP's 56 MPs have spent their first four months in parliament downing expensive champagne, swearing at parliamentary staff, and renting out posh flats, an article in The Spectator has claimed.
The article, published on Thursday, states that the MPs have been accused by their own party's staff of acting like "complete arseholes" during late-night boozing sessions. On one occasion, it alleges, a group of drunken MPs were belting out Scottish folk songs, and, when asked to stop by bar staff, replied "fuck you".
However, the SNP MPs quoted in the article have told BuzzFeed News their lives are actually quite boring. Asked if life as an SNP MP was half as glamorous as the one detailed in the article, Stewart McDonald MP simply replied: "I wish."
Natalie McGarry, the MP for Glasgow East who is said in the article to have organised an SNP dinner at a posh restaurant, said the article was "pretty silly" and "bizarre".
Bizarre piece in the spectator about SNP MPs. Fact the author has misquoted and retold stories inaccurately pretty silly.
She claimed she had been misquoted in the piece.
@WikiGuido @Boab10 Bizarre to see quotes in my name that simply aren't quotes. Shame the author had to rely on misquotes.
McGarry also denied reports that the SNP group had a lavish meal in Westminster with £100 bottles of wine.
@Belic Hahahaha. Dinner for all, including drinks, was £43 per head! £100 wine? Do they think we button up backwards?!
Owen Thompson MP – introduced in The Spectator as "the ginger-bearded Owen Thompson" – is alleged to spend his evenings knocking back real ale in the Sports and Social bar in parliament. He said the lifestyle the SNP MPs appear to have in the article is off the mark.
"Some nights when we finish late I'll not eat till I'm home, which will tend to be toast or a Pot Noodle – it's more a student lifestyle than champagne I'd say," said the MP.
"My experience of the SNP group has been of a team of exceptionally hard-working people doing the job they were elected to do. Do folk sometimes have a drink at the end of the day? Yes, but this isn't something out of the ordinary in my experience."
Asked if the SNP group go out drinking more than any of the other MPs, Thompson replied: "If they do then I'm clearly not getting the invite."
Gavin Newlands, the MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire North, who was quoted in the article as "gushing" about the food in the Commons canteens, said he often goes through entire days without eating because he's opted to go on a strict diet.
"I have never ordered or seen another SNP MP order champagne at all," said the MP. "I'm on a diet so I often don't eat at Westminster, but when I do it is in the canteen or members' tearoom.
"The journalist has painted a picture of an MP's life that I certainly don't recognise. It is a life of long, unsociable hours working hard for constituents, both in Westminster and at home in the constituency. I don't have time for glamour!"
He also said he doubted whether the story of an SNP MP swearing at bar staff is true, saying he's only ever seen "a drunken lord" misbehave in the parliament bars.
"I have never heard an SNP MP be cheeky to the bar staff at all – on the contrary, the Westminster staff have welcomed the new SNP MPs extremely well and couldn't have been any more accommodating."
At the end of a long day, Thompson returns to his flat which was described in the article as a "high-end property in west London".
"The bedroom is literally the size of a double bed," said Thompson. "I'm really only in it to sleep and so it does the job, but isn't what any reasonable person calls luxury."
The author of the piece, Alex Wickham, defended the article to McGarry after her criticism.
@NatalieMcGarry what is incorrect? It's all verbatim. Dinner story told to me by another SNP MP. Piece doesn't even criticise you!