VISCOUNT Astor, the stepfather of David Cameron's wife Samantha, has accused Nicola Sturgeon of threatening a "Mugabe-style land grab" against country estate owners in Scotland.
The First Minister has put forward controversial plans to change Scotland's land laws, so that one million acres are placed into public ownership by 2020. If the Scottish Government decides the ownership of land by estates becomes a barrier to local development, then it could force landowners to sell up.
The Astor family bought the 20,000-acre Tarbert estate on the Hebridean island of Jura almost a century ago. In the past, the Prime Minister has taken part in deer stalking there.
In the right-wing Spectator magazine, the fourth Viscount, William Waldorf Astor III, wrote: "Following the SNP victory...families like us worry that we will find ourselves regarded as foreigners again in our own country. Is it because we don't sound Scottish? We should not all have to sound like Rob Roy," asked the hereditary peer.
"If the SNP wants us all to speak with a certain type of Scottish accent, what does that say to the many hundreds of thousands in the immigrant community who have lived in Scotland for a long time but still speak with the accent of their birth? Are they not Scottish?"
The 63-year-old businessman echoed concerns about the SNP Government centralising power, arguing that he was concerned Ms Sturgeon's plans would not benefit local communities but, rather, simply hand power to Edinburgh.
"Are we estate owners now to be nationalised or made to feel so unwelcome that we have to sell up in a Mugabe-style land grab?" he asked.
In response, the FM's spokesman branded Lord Astor's comments "pretty preposterous" and said: "I don't think anyone does their argument any favours by using such ridiculous overblown comparisons."
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article