JACKIE Baillie has thanked an SNP grandee for donating to her campaign – and helping to stop an “SNP majority in Holyrood”.
Scottish Labour’s deputy leader was gifted £2000 from Jim Sillars ahead of last year’s election.
Baillie, who represents Dumbarton in the Scottish Parliament, made the comments as Labour’s conference in Glasgow came to a close on Sunday.
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She said: “Let me also say thank you to Jim Sillars – I spent the money well, Jim, and more importantly, stopped an SNP majority in Holyrood.”
Sillars, who was deputy leader of the SNP for a time under Alex Salmond, made the donation because he “didn't want someone with considerable ability to disappear”.
He told the Daily Record he was concerned about a “lack of quality” in Holyrood, adding: “I don’t think there is any doubt she is an asset to the parliament. My concern, in donating to Jackie Baillie, was to have a very able person in parliament.”
Sillars (above, left) insisted he remains a member of the SNP, which he joined in the 1980s.
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He won the Labour seat of Glasgow Govan in the 1988 by-election and represented the constituency for four years.
At a fringe event earlier in the conference, Baillie claimed it was “wrong” for Labour to get into bed with the Tories during the run-up to the 2014 independence referendum.
She said: “We had been telling everybody for years that the Tories were terrible, and we cooperated with them. Don't get me wrong, there was a greater issue at stake, which was the future of the United Kingdom, but I think we were wrong to have done that.
"I think we should have run distinctive campaigns … but that's what we chose to do at the time.”
Baillie is one of just two Labour MSPs to represent a constituency in the Scottish Parliament – the rest are elected on the regional list.
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