Anger at Sturgeon’s ‘I detest Tories’ outburst
NICOLA Sturgeon came under fire for her ‘dangerous language’ yesterday after she said she ‘detested’ the Tory party.
The Scottish First Minister was accused of stoking division and alienating a quarter of her country’s electorate as she struggled to make headway in winning a second independence referendum.
Miss Sturgeon told BBC’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg: ‘If the question to me is “would I prefer a Labour government over a Tory government?” I detest the Tories and everything they stand for – so it’s not difficult to answer that question.’
The comments were met with incredulity by senior Tories including the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster Nadhim Zahawi, who said: ‘That language is really dangerous. I prefer to work with my colleagues in Scotland.’
Miss Sturgeon’s comments were mirrored by the Scottish Constitution Secretary, Angus Robertson, who said he was ‘focused on making Scotland a Tory-free country’. Deputy First Minister John Swinney also stepped up the Tory attacks in his address to the SNP conference in Aberdeen, telling delegates: ‘The Tories really are a bunch of reckless hypocrites.’
But former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said: ‘There is clearly a rhetoric-raising strategy to ... traduce a quarter of the Scottish voting population.’ Donald Cameron, the Conservative shadow cabinet secretary for constitution, said Miss Sturgeon wants to ‘stoke grievance at every opportunity’.
Tory MP Andrew Bowie, who represents West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine, said: ‘That’s the First Minister of Scotland “detesting” a quarter of the Scottish electorate.’ Tory MSP Annie Wells said: ‘It reveals a nastier side to the First Minister.’
ANY Conservative MPs planning on making trouble for the Prime Minister when Parliament returns tomorrow might wish to heed Nicola Sturgeon’s alarming comments to the BBC yesterday.
With her tiresome nationalist bile, Scotland’s First Minister announced she actively ‘detests’ the Tories ‘and everything they stand for’. Leave aside that these are hardly the measured words of a senior political statesman. Forget, too, that they’re also an insult to the thousands of Scots who voted Conservative at the last election.
Don’t Miss Sturgeon’s remarks perfectly illustrate the toxicity of the coalition-inwaiting of the SNP and Labour, whose deputy leader Angela Rayner, lest we forget, once branded the Tories ‘scum’?
Mutinous Tories may think things are bad now. But they should consider the chaos an unholy Labour/SNP alliance would unleash on the country.