Council tax debt Tory toff is axed
BY CHARLIE GALL THE dad of Game of Thrones star Rose Leslie has been booted out of the Tory party by colleagues over a council tax debt.
Councillor Sebastian Leslie, who lives in a castle, was understood to be about £2500 in arrears.
Yesterday, it emerged he has been kicked out of the Conservative Party for at least a year for deliberately missing payments.
In May, the Record revealed how the toff had been suspended for bring his party into disrepute.
Leslie, who represents the West Garioch council constituency in Aberdeenshire, was subject to a disciplinary investigation by party chiefs. Under the local government finance act, councillors who are in arrears are not banned from voting on budget matters.
Leslie, who was elected last year, insisted he wouldn’t pay up as a protest against corruption in the Scottish banking system. He said: “I have been running a campaign against the degradation to the Scottish justice system by the SNP since I was elected and, in order to raise publicity on this matter, I have overstepped the mark and have gone slow on my council tax.” He later claimed: “I will get up to date.”
A Tory spokesman said: “Councillor Leslie has been suspended from the Scottish Conservative Party.”
As chieftain of Clan Leslie, the councillor and his family lived in the ancestral home Lickleyhead Castle when Rose was a child.
In June, she married Thrones co-star Kit Harington at the family’s other home, Wardhill Castle.