‘Salmond tried to give me style tips’ says Black

Mhairi Black has told a magazine that former first minister Alex Salmond tried to give her style advice after she was elected to Westminster.

The MP for Paisley and Renfrewshire South also revealed the EX-SNP leader suggested allowing then-fellow MP Tasmina Ahmed-sheikh to take her on a shopping trip.

Ms Black, who was first elected to Parliament at the age of 20 in 2015, told Holyrood magazine of a sit-down she had with Mr Salmond following her election.

She said: “It was fine, really, I was just sitting chatting away to him and the whole time I’m thinking – what’s the point of this meant to be?

“Is this a date, do to come out to Salmond?”

“He was just giving me tips here and there and then he says, ‘I’m sure Taz will take you out to go shopping or something at some point and you’ll find your own style’.

“He then said that the last time he’d had this conversation it was with a young woman called Nicola Sturgeon.

“I thought, ‘Oh, very good’, and I just left the awkward silence hanging when he asked me if I wanted him to arrange it with Taz. I’m like, ‘I am never going to be told how I need Alex to dress, especially by a man’.” Ms Black also revealed she has not had what the magazine described as a real oneon-one conversation with Ms Sturgeon, the SNP leader and First Minister, and she called for the party to do more to support newly-elected politicians.

During the interview, the MP told Holyrood editor Mandy Rhodes she hopes future candidates entering parliament have a different and more supportive experience from the one she had.

She said: “I think things should change and that it might be an idea for Nicola to take time to talk to folk or whatever but I hope that someone else further down the line does have a different experience to me.”

Ms Black added: “There should be more care ... there you go. I know I’m doing that thing again, where I’m maybe minimising it because it’s myself I’m talking about and I don’t want to make out I was really needy or anything.

“But I think that’s an area where the party does need a kick up the backside, especially given the kind of caring ethos that we like to preach in the party.”

The interview with Holyrood magazine is due to be published in full today.

0 Mhairi Black says she will never be told how she should dress by a man