SNP minister ridiculed for her Thatcher era blunders

AN SNP minister was yesterday ridiculed after she wrongly claimed Margaret Thatcher had been forced to make an English MP Scottish Secretary after winning no seats north of the Border.

Maree Todd was reminiscing over her journey into politics when she said that part of the reason she is ‘so passionate about independence’ is because Mrs Thatcher led a UK Government with no MPs in Scotland.

The claim was soon picked up by social media users, with opponents suggesting the Early Years Minister was ‘blinded by her irrational hatred of the UK’.

Mrs Todd, pictured, was speaking to Holyrood magazine about her political career and referred to the 1979 devolution vote in Scotland. It was the year that Mrs Thatcher became Prime Minister – when Mrs Todd was six years old.

She said that she spent much of her formative years ‘seeing a government in Westminster which had less and less support in Scotland’.

She added: ‘We didn’t have a single Tory MP but we still had a Tory government, and they had to scrape together a Scottish Secretary who was Scottish but represented an English constituency.’

Mrs Todd went on to claim that this was part of the reason she backed independence. ‘That felt unjust and the democratic deficit of that situation has always been very clear to me,’ she said.

‘I guess that is part of the reason I am so passionate about independence.’

She was quickly challenged online about the inaccuracy. In fact, following the 1979 election there were more than 20 Conservative seats in Scotland.

The Scottish Secretary from 1979 to 1986 was George Younger, Conservative MP for Ayr.

A Scottish Conservative spokesman said: ‘Like so many Nationalists, Maree Todd is so blinded by her irrational hatred of the UK, she’s making stuff up in a pathetic attempt to justify it.’

Last night, Mrs Todd took to Twitter to defend her comments, saying: ‘Interesting that the big issue being picked up on by political opponents is my imperfect childhood memories.’