Jackie Baillie has thanked Jim Sillars after the SNP icon donated to her succesful reelection campaign last year.
The Scottish Labour MSP deprived Nicola Sturgeon of a majority at Holyrood after she held the Dumbarton constituency for the sixth time.
The Record revealed how Sillars – a former SNP MP who won the famous 1988 Govan by-election – had donated to Baillie’s reelection campaign.
Speaking at the last day of the Scottish Labour spring conference in Glasgow, Baillie described it as money well spent.
She said: “Thank you to my own campaign team for helping to keep Dumbarton red.
“And let me also say thank you to Jim Sillars – I spent the money well, Jim, and more importantly, stopped an SNP majority in Holyrood.”
Put to him that Baillie’s triumph stopped the SNP from winning the election outright, Sillars told the Record: “If that was a consequence of it, so be it.”
(Image: UGC)
Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP were desperate to win the 65 seats needed for an outright win in May, but fell one seat short.
Baillie’s victory in Dumbarton against the SNP’s Toni Giugliano – her sixth win in the constituency – was a pivotal moment.
According to the Electoral Commission, Sillars made two separate donations of £1,000 in the weeks before polling day.
Baillie used her conference speech to claim Scotland had “been failed by both its governments in its time of greatest need””.
She said: “There has been a huge and unprecedented fall in life expectancy in Scotland. We are now bottom of all the four nations. That’s what happens after 15 years of an SNP government.
“But it doesn’t have to be this way. We can offer hope for the future.
“Let’s start by kicking Boris out of Number 10. I don’t want to send the Tories a message at the next election, I want to send them their P45.
“Labour under the effective leadership of Keir Starmer, is sitting ahead in the polls, there is a very real prospect that we can replace the Tories.
“We can build the kind of decent society the majority of Scots want to see. By working together, we can do it now.”
Sillars said he had been concerned about a “lack of quality” at Holyrood, but insisted Baillie, who is one of the most pro-UK MSPs, was an obvious exception.
“She is a very impressive member of Parliament,” he said.
Sillars was impressed with Baillie’s performance on the Holyrood committee scrutinising the Government’s unlawful probe into sexual misconduct allegations into Salmond.
“She was a stand out on that committee,” he said. “I would prefer her in the parliament to a clone on the backbenches.”
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