Alex Salmond yesterday dismissed as "tosh and humbug" criticisms of his claims that Scots had been less hostile to Margaret Thatcher's economic policies than to their social impact.

Alex Salmond yesterday dismissed as "tosh and humbug" criticisms of his claims that Scots had been less hostile to Margaret Thatcher's economic policies than to their social impact.

The First Minister rejected calls for an apology as "typical Labour humbug" and "complete tosh" as he claimed that the full interview made clear his disapproval of all aspects of Thatcherism.

But former SNP colleague Jim Sillars joined the chorus of criticism, writing in a letter to The Herald: "It is revisionist nonsense for Alex Salmond to suggest that our society only objected to her social policies, while we accepted her economic ones."

The section of an interview which attracted attention saw Mr Salmond say: "The SNP has a strong social conscience which is very Scottish in itself. One of the reasons Scotland didn't take to Lady Thatcher was because of that. We didn't mind the economic side so much. We didn't like the social side at all."

The First Minister, who stressed that unlike the Prime Minister he would never invite Lady Thatcher to his official residence, said: "I was commenting on why Scots, in particular, were so deeply resentful of Thatcher and I think here her social message epitomised in the unfair poll tax and her comments of no such thing as society' cut against a very Scottish grain of social conscience. That doesn't mean that the nation liked her economic polices, just that we liked her lack of concern for social consequences even less.

"I have never approved of either Margaret Thatcher's social or economic polices as is clear from the very next passage of the full interview where I suggest that the Scottish founder of economics Adam Smith could sue for the misuse of his economic thought by Thatcherites."

Labour's Holyrood leadership contender Andy Kerr, speaking at a hustings meeting in Inverness, said: "Margaret Thatcher used unemployment as a tool of economic management and threw thousands of Scots on the employment scrapheap prematurely.

"We may face current economic challenges but no-one wants Margaret Thatcher back in any guise - particularly that of Alex Salmond."