‘Drooling hag’ Tory wins Fife seat

A Fife Tory candidate has won her seat despite having had to apologise for offensive tweets about Nicola Sturgeon.

Kathleen Leslie issued the apology when it emerged she sent a string of comments in the run up to the 2014 Scottish independence referendum.

In a series of tweets, she described Ms Sturgeon as a “drooling hag” and “a walking horror show” in 2013.

The Scottish Conservatives said they had “reminded her of her responsibilities” and she had apologised while the SNP described her comments as “spectacularly ill-judged and insulting”.

Despite the controversy she was elected in the Burntisland, Kinghorn and West Kirkcaldy ward.

The local elections saw the SNP win a historic victory in Fife, once Labour’s impregnable heartland. The SNP took 29 seats to Labour’s 24 with the Tories jumping from 3 to 15.

Football legend Jim Leishman was returned for Labour, as was veteran campaigner Helen Law and former miner Bobby Clelland in the West Fife villages.

One disappointment for the SNP was Neale Hanvey, the party’s Fife group leader, losing his seat in Dunfermline.

The horse-trading now begins but unless Labour and the Tories are ready to join forces, the council will be led by the SNP.