Leading Moray Conservatives have condemned John Swinney’s attack on Moray Council on BBC TV’s Question Time, which was hosted in Elgin last night by Fiona Bruce, as “a disgrace”.
Councillor Marc Macrae (Fochabers-Lhanbryde) who was a member of the audience said: “There was an audible collective intake of breath when John Swinney blamed the financial problems afflicting Moray Council as the fault of previous administrations which, incidentally, were mainly made up of Independent Councillors, not Conservatives as he claimed.
“People in the audience were genuinely angry at his attempt to hoodwink the audience watching the programme at home.
“Frankly his comments were a disgrace and a fellow member of the audience put him right a few minutes later when he pointed out that the Scottish Government has slashed the Council’s budget, in contrast to the funding the Scottish Government has received from Westminster.”
Jamie Halcro Johnston, Scottish Conservative MSP for the Highlands and Islands, said, “It is incredible that a minister like John Swinney should come up from Holyrood and slag off a local council whose budgets, as a former Finance Secretary, he squeezed while in office.
“We’re now at the point in Moray where the Council can’t even afford to cut the grass in some places – a cut implemented by SNP councillors.
“It is telling that the biggest cheer of the night came when an audience member needed to tell John Swinney that the SNP should concentrate on the day job of running the Scottish Government.
“Even Fiona Bruce commented on the lack of support in the audience in Elgin for John Swinney, and it was definitely an uncomfortable night for Nicola Sturgeon’s right hand man.
“The audience’s strongly negative reaction to John Swinney was far from surprising given his complete lack of awareness that many of the problems Moray faces are the result of decisions made by him and his SNP colleagues”.
