THE Scottish Tories have been caught deleting a tweet condemning Nicola Sturgeon over the exam results controversy.
The post lambasted the First Minister for allegedly overseeing “one of the biggest scandals in the history of devolution” (just wait until they hear about the power grab!) after pupils’ test scores were downgraded by the SQA.
The SNP leader, along with Education Secretary John Swinney, have since apologised and announced that 100,000 exam results would be reinstated.
In England, however, Tory Education Secretary Gavin Williamson is under fire as head teachers warned some lowered grades seem to be “unfair and unfathomable”, with around 36% of entries awarded a lower grade than predicted.
READ MORE: Results chaos in England as Tories gear up for John Swinney no-confidence vote
It is in this context that the Scottish Conservative’s tweet slamming Sturgeon has disappeared.
It read: “Nicola Sturgeon presided over one of the biggest scandals in the history of devolution, which shattered the life chances of thousands of Scottish pupils. Her belated apology is not good enough for the teachers, parents and pupils who were effected [sic] by this fiasco.”
However, the post suddenly vanished from the profiles of scores of Tory politicians who shared it. This meant it appeared that the individual politicians, including David Mundell and minister James Cleverly, had deleted the tweets. In fact, it seems it was the Scottish Tories’ central account.
MSP Richard Lochhead tweeted: “Wow! The Tories are now deleting their tweets about the @theSNP because of what’s now happening in England under their watch.”
Sturgeon described the move as “telling”.
Clarification re my last tweet. The reality is even more telling. https://t.co/7LtgKLrYdA
— Nicola Sturgeon (@NicolaSturgeon) August 13, 2020
READ MORE: SNP hit out at Tories for 'rank hypocrisy' over English exam results
The Scottish Tories claimed that the deletion was down to the misuse of the word effected.
We deleted a tweet because of one mistaken letter.
— Scottish Conservatives (@ScotTories) August 13, 2020
You took a week to correct the grades of 75,000 pupils. https://t.co/cTKOTjOcg0
But as journalist Chris Green pointed out, that's pretty humiliating in itself.
Understand that the original Tweet was deleted by Scot Tories due to the misspelling of 'effected' - which is pretty embarrassing anyway considering it was about school standards...
— Chris Green (@ChrisGreenNews) August 13, 2020
Whatever the truth is, it's another embarrassing own goal for Douglas Ross’ party.
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