THE deputy leader of the SNP at Westminster has said Scotland "deserves far better" than the populist soundbites offered by the Tory leadership candidates at the party’s hustings in Perth.
Kirsten Oswald MP tweeted: “I’m pretty sure we needed to hear none of these lowest common denominator, race to the bottom, populist soundbites.
“Scotland deserves far better than these Tory leadership contenders.”
It comes as Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss face Conservative party members in Perth at the leadership hustings.
I'm pretty sure we needed to hear none of these lowest common denominator, race to the bottom, populist soundbites. Scotland deserves far better than these Tory leadership contenders. https://t.co/zxtSCZcwaN
— Kirsten Oswald MP (@kirstenoswald) August 16, 2022
In his opening statement Rishi Sunak said the stakes couldn’t be higher for the next general election.
He said: “I don’t want to just ignore Nicola Sturgeon, I want to take her on and beat her.”
He added that he wanted to “take on this lefty, woke culture that seems to want to cancel our history, our values and our women”.
In her opening statement Liz Truss mentioned spending most of her “formative years” in Scotland.
She said: “I went to primary school in Paisley, the West Primary School, before I moved to Leeds in England.
"And I consider myself to be a child of the union, and to me, we're not just neighbours, we're family.
"And I will never, ever let our family be split up."
Sunak also said that he "can’t imagine circumstances" where he would allow another independence referendum to be held.
Before Sunak took the stage he was introduced by Scottish Conservative MP Andrew Bowie.
Bowie took the opportunity to criticise the First Minister Nicola Sturgeon.
He said: “We cannot trust the Scottish National Party to act in the best interests of the Scottish people only in the interests of the SNP.
“Only in the interests of the two-time Vogue cover-star, TV personality, Instagrammer, sometime-First Minister Nicola Sturgeon, who is definitely not an attention-seeker.”
It comes after Liz Truss accused Nicola Sturgeon of being an attention seeker who should be ignored, comments Deputy First Minister John Swinney said were "unacceptable" and undermined the Unionist cause.
