THE Scottish Tories were accused of “rank hypocrisy” yesterday when they refused to criticise the UK Government for downgrading the A-level results of thousands of pupils in England.

The publication of the exam results south of the Border came just hours before the party attempted to oust John Swinney in the Scottish Parliament.

The Tories also caused a bit of a stir on social media when they deleted an old tweet criticising the Scottish Government’s handling of the exam result row.

That tweet claimed the First Minister had “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”.

Nicola Sturgeon said the deleting of the social media missive was “telling”. But the Tories claimed they deleted the week-old tweet on the day the A-level results were published because of a spelling error.

In England, 39.1% of teachers’ estimates for pupils were adjusted down by one grade or more, according to data from exams body Ofqual.

The proportion of students with A-level grade reductions was largest among those from the most deprived backgrounds.

As in Scotland, schools and colleges were told to submit the grades they thought each student would have received if they had sat the papers.

Exam boards moderated these centre-assessment grades to ensure this year’s results were not significantly higher than previous years, and the value of students’ grades were not undermined.

Some 85% of candidates classed as having a “low” socio-economic status by Ofqual had been predicted to achieve a C and above by their schools. But this fell to 74.6% once final grades were calculated under this year’s new moderation process – a drop of 10.4 percentage points.

By contrast, the proportion of students from the least deprived backgrounds, or “high” socio-economic status, awarded a C and above fell by 8.3 percentage points during the process, from 89.3% to 81.0%.

Labour urged Westminster to follow the lead of the Scottish Government, and scrap moderated exam grades in favour

of the teachers’ original predicted grades.

Education Secretary Gavin Williamson (pictured) ruled that out. He said: “This is the right approach to go forward. You’ve got to have a system that has checks and balances, that looks at the whole performance and making sure you maintain standards within the exam system, to ensure those results carry credibility.”

Douglas Ross – who backed calls for Swinney to resign – declined to publicly condemn Williamson.

He said it is not his job to “support the UK Government on everything”, adding: “Some say the exam results in England cause me difficulties. My job as leader of @scottories is to get the best for young people & everyone in Scotland. It’s not my job to support the UK Government on everything. I’ll challenge them when I believe they’re wrong.”

Carol Monaghan, the SNP’s shadow education spokesperson, said: “As concerns over exam results were raised in Scotland, Douglas Ross and the Scottish Tories were quick off the mark to play petty party politics and demand resignations.

“Their deafening silence over the exam results published in England today – with almost 40% of students having their exam results downgraded compared to 25% in Scotland – reeks of rank hypocrisy.”