Tributes are paid to Tory council candidate following dinner death
THE Scottish Conservative Party held a minute’s silence in memory of a council candidate who died at a dinner to mark the start of the event.
Marjory Borthwick, 61, the chairwoman of the North Lanarkshire Conservative Party, took ill suddenly at the event at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Glasgow on Thursday night.
Paramedics were called and attempts were made to revive her, with doctor and former Tory MSP Nanette Milne, a former spokeswoman for the party on health and community care, amongst those who tried to save her.
Paying tribute, party leader Ruth Davidson said: “Marjory was one of the first people I met when I joined the Conservative Party. She was a bubbly, enthusiastic, warm-hearted woman whose energy was infectious.
“We will all miss her terribly, not least her colleagues in the North Lanarkshire association to whom she was so devoted.”
Ms Borthwick, from Wishaw, had been selected to stand as a candidate in May’s local government elections.
Claire Adamson, the SNP MSP for Motherwell and Wishaw, wrote on Twitter that she was “very sad to hear of the death” and her thoughts were with Ms Borthwick’s friends and family. Councillor Rosa Zambonini, whose is the representative of the Wishaw ward, said that she was also saddened to “hear of the death of my neighbour and Conservative party council candidate Marjory Borthwick”.
Student Michael Sheridan, who campaigns with Scottish Labour said Ms Borthwick was someone who “fought endlessly for what she’d believed in”.