The National:

ANAS Sarwar has been left red-faced after twice telling the BBC it was misquoting him.

The Scottish Labour leader was appearing on The Sunday Show when host Martin Geissler asked about comments he had made earlier in the week.

“You said this week Scotland has a ‘dark side’, with racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, sexism,” the BBC man said.

“Let me ask you this, is the Orange Order an organisation that promotes the kind of inclusivity and tolerance that you are promoting?”

The line of questioning was aimed at Scottish Labour council candidate Henry Dunbar, the former “Imperial President” of the Orange Order.

READ MORE: Watch as Orange Order Labour candidate tells crowd 'no surrender to separatism'

Instead of immediately answering the question, however, Sarwar claimed: “First of all, I didn’t say Scotland has a ‘dark side’. What I said was Scotland is the best nation on earth, but it isn’t perfect.”

The BBC host pointed out that Sarwar had indeed used the term in an interview earlier in the week, only for the Scottish Labour leader to double down.

“I think the question was ‘do you think Scotland has a dark side?’ and I said Scotland’s not perfect …”

Unfortunately for Sarwar, the interview in which he said Scotland has a “dark side” hasn’t just disappeared.

In fact, the DC Thomson “Stooshie” podcast in which he made the comment is still available to listen to for free. Also, the interviewer didn’t use the term. It came from Sarwar, more than once.

Asked if he had experienced racism in his role as party leader, the Labour MSP told the podcast: “We have got a dark side in our country that we shouldn’t be shy about talking about and we shouldn't be shy about exposing.

“But I think fundamentally as a nation, we still have you where you know, it doesn't matter where you come from when you're here, you're one of us.”

He then added: “We've got still a dark side in terms of racism, Islamophobia, antisemitism, homophobia, sexism are real in Scotland, they’re everyday lived experiences for thousands of our fellow citizens.”

But Sarwar’s bizarre denial of having used a phrase he used just days before wasn’t even necessarily the low point of his short time on the BBC’s Sunday Show.

The Scottish Labour leader also admitted he doesn’t know how many members his party has – and claimed he is “not interested” in increasing it.

Despite that, he also doubled down on previous claims that he could become First Minister in four years.

Oh, and in answer to that question about the former Orange Order leader Dunbar, Sarwar said: “I don’t choose the candidates, local parties do.”

However, that didn’t appear to hold true ahead of the Holyrood election when Hollie Cameron, the pro-indyref2 Labour MSP candidate, was deselected.