Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson condemns ‘lesbo’ tweets as ‘unacceptable’

The leader of the Conservative Party in Scotland Ruth Davidson, has responded to homophobic comments on social media during a debate on independence last night to say she hopes young people know they shouldn’t accept hate.

During the debate in which she argued for Scotland to stay in the UK on behalf of Better Together, a number of tweets commenting on Ms Davidson’s sexuality were sent.

She criticised the name calling which included “big fat dirty lesbo”, as well as others calling her a “dyke”, and said they were “unacceptable”.

The comments were posted on Twitter during last night’s debate

Speaking to PinkNews, Ms Davidson condemned the comments, saying: “I fully support the No Bystanders campaign that Stonewall has been running to stop people using homophobic language.

“Quite often, I will retweet homophobic comments made about me in order to call them out.”

“While I am not overly affected by it, I think it is important that young LGBT people know that they don’t have to just accept the kind of hate words which are thrown about online and which are unacceptable,” she continued.

The debate around Scottish independence is beginning to heat up as a referendum takes place on 18 September.

Scotland’s Equality Network earlier this week called on the country’s main political parties to outline how the independence question could impact on LGBT rights.

Support for Scottish independence has risen eight points in a month, according to a new poll.

The No camp are now six points ahead of the Yes campaign, down from 14 points in mid-August and 22 points early last month, excluding undecided voters.

The latest YouGov poll found that, excluding ”don’t knows”, 53% of those questioned planned to vote No, while 47% would back Yes.

This compares to 57% for No and 43% for Yes in mid-August and 61% for No and 39% for Yes at the beginning of last month.

• TV
• Dec 18 2024

All 14 seasons of Doctor Who ranked from worst to best