James O'Brien hits out at 'lazy, cynical political point-scoring' against Nicola Sturgeon

10 October 2022, 12:20 | Updated: 10 October 2022, 12:28

By Sam Sholli

James O'Brien has taken aim at "lazy, cynical political point-scoring" at Nicola Sturgeon's expense, after she said she detests the Tories.

In response to being asked whether she would rather a Tory or Labour government, Ms Sturgeon said to BBC journalist Laura Kuenssberg “I detest the Tories and everything they stand for".

In response to a Daily Telegraph story concerning what she said, James said: "The Telegraph's headline again misses out the definite article."

James then read out the headline in question: Sturgeon has no regrets over 'detesting' Tories.

He then read from the article's opening sentence, which claims that Nicola Sturgeon said she does not regret stating that she detests Tories.

However, James contrasted this with what Scotland's First Minister said, which was that she detests "the Tories".

The full opening sentence from the Daily Telegraph reads as follows: Nicola Sturgeon has said she does not regret stating that she "detests" Tories after she was accused of using "really dangerous", inflammatory language and insulting more than 600,000 Scottish Conservative voters.

James said: "But, does anybody really think they're dangerous?

"All of the people that might be queuing up on social media, or in Nadhim Zahawi's case on television, to describe these words as really dangerous - if you had a truth serum and you ask them 'are you telling the truth?', I think they'd all say no.

"I think they're all lying. None of them think it's actually dangerous. They've just seen a fairly easy opportunity for a bit of lazy, cynical political point-scoring.

"And, of course, Nicola Sturgeon won't care because...she doesn't speak to English voters. She's interested only in Scottish voters.

"So there's no PR disaster for Nicola Sturgeon when she says she hates the Tories, because in Scotland it's practically a national pastime at the moment."