SNP mask money will go to charity reveals Nicola Sturgeon

Nicola Sturgeon has said money raised from the sale of branded SNP face masks will go to charity as she was accused of allowing her party to “profiteer” from Covid.

Nicola Sturgeon was criticised for SNP face masks.

The First Minister made the revelation as she was challenged on the issue by Scottish Conservative leader Jackson Carlaw, after days of controversy over the £8 face coverings for sale on the SNP website.

The SNP had previously drawn comparisons with football clubs and other organisations which have produced branded face coverings as the reason for producing their own.

However today Ms Sturgeon said: "I will continue to do everything to persuade people to wear face coverings, and in terms of my party every penny of profit made will go to charity actually."

It was not specified which charity would benefit.

Ms Sturgeon was forced to explain how the money raised would be spent, after she accused Mr Carlaw of “playing politics" over the use of statistics.

The Scottish Government has been rebuked by the Office of Statistics Regulation, who said her claims earlier in July that the prevelance of Covid was five times higher in England than Scotland were not based on comparable or published data, and should not have been made.

Mr Carlaw hit backing saying the First Minister needed to be “very careful when she talks about playing politics" with coronavirus “when she as the leader and chief executive of her party profiteer from coronavirus by producing party political face masks to raise funds for the SNP and then encourage people down in the borders to shout obscentities at people coming to this country from England, encouraged by elected SNP parliamentarians.

"The issue is that public confidence in government decisions should not be undermined by made up figures to substantiate party political spin. The First Minister knows this prevalence statistic was wrong and why it was wrong. People take the First Minister at her word and now they know that they were repeatedly misled on this fact, will she apologise?”

Ms Sturgeon said she felt sorry for Jackson Carlaw and that in her 30 years in politics she couldn’t “imagine getting so bound up in bitter partisan politics that I can't bring myself to welcome the fact that we’ve made such progress against a deadly virus. How blinded must you be to find yourself in that position?” she said. “My tolerance for this kind of politics is lower than it has ever been before.”

She added: “The conclusion I drew about the prevalence was not wrong, the figures I accept were not published and that is not down to me, it’s down to decisions of the UK government. But we’re in a position right now, that over the course of July we've had nine registered deaths under the daily measurement, none over the last two weeks at all, and the corresponding figure for England is around 2000.

"Even if you think the figure I used previously was wrong the figures now demonstrate the relative position and why would anyone find pleasure in arguing that’s not the case?

"I've had to stand up and report these death figures, day in day out, so the relief I feel everyday that I’m able to report no deaths because of the reducing prevalence is immense and I will continue to focus on that.”

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