Nats accused of energy bill lies… as SNP launches unit to fight ‘lies’
SNP POLITICIANS have been accused of ‘endemic’ lying over the price of energy on the day the party announced a ‘rebuttal unit’ to counter misinformation.
Its deputy leader yesterday said the SNP would deploy staff charged with responding to opposition attacks.
But numerous Nationalist politicians were accused of ‘telling fibs’ after claiming Scots pay more for energy, despite the claim being condemned as ‘egregiously false’.
Deputy leader Keith Brown, as well as MPs Chris Law and Anne McLaughlin, have all tried to insist during the SNP conference that Scottish households are hit by higher energy bills.
But Sam Taylor, chief executive of the These Islands think tank, debunked their claims yesterday and hit out at the ‘absolutely rife’ culture of dishonesty from the SNP.
Sharing a clip of Keith Brown on the Today programme insisting that it was ‘more expensive to have energy in Scotland than it is in most other parts of the UK’, Mr Taylor said: ‘SNP lies on energy are endemic.’
Other footage showed Nationalist MP Chris Law making the ‘false’ assertion that average energy and transmission charges are higher in Scotland. Mr Taylor said: ‘More lies at SNP conference.’
Ms McLaughlin also railed against Scots having to ‘pay more than those in England’, which Mr Taylor said was ‘straightforwardly false’.
Research has found that while a typical Scottish household pays £10 more for gas per year than families south of the Border, electricity tends to be £60 less. Mr Taylor told the Scottish Daily Mail: ‘Dishonesty around energy is absolutely rife within the SNP, and voters are entitled to wonder why the party cannot tell the truth.
‘It’s possible that party activists are so used to spreading misinformation, they simply cannot tell the difference between what is true and what is false.’
Scottish Conservative energy spokesman Douglas Lumsden said: ‘If the SNP are setting up a rebuttal unit to tackle disinformation, they had better get it on to their own MSPs who are continually, and falsely, claiming that Scotland’s energy charges are higher than the rest of the UK.’
Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex ColeHamilton said: ‘It looks like the SNP’s new counter-disinformation unit is going to have its hands full just dealing with the number of SNP parliamentarians who have been telling fibs.’
During his speech yesterday, Mr Brown revealed the rebuttal unit would be in action next week.
He said: ‘I look forward to seeing the work of that rebuttal unit informing the debate on Scotland’s future.’
It follows a pledge Humza Yousaf made during the bitter leadership battle, arguing it would try to stop ‘lies’ from critics spreading.
The SNP was contacted and asked for responses from those involved.
‘Dishonesty around energy rife in SNP’