SCOTTISH Tory local government spokesperson Miles Briggs has admitted the local election is “challenging” as his party deals with the “anger” following the partygate scandal.
The Lothian MSP said that partygate has “been a key part of this election” and that the Conservatives have struggled to get activists to go out and vote.
He told The Herald: “It’s been a challenging election – I think we knew this was going to be difficult.
“Yesterday when we were speaking to activists, we were finding it quite hard to motivate them to go out and vote, instead of just staying at home.”
Read more: Local elections Scotland: LIVE updates as results come in
Speaking at the Edinburgh City Council count after his party lost a couple of key councillors, Mr Briggs said : “It’s been grim but it will get better”.
But he also stressed that there “some rays of hope” elsewhere.
Asked about the impact of partygate, Mr Briggs said: “It has been a key part of this election.
“One of the hardest aspects of that has been the anger towards the Prime Minister and his team.”
He added that Tory activists “don’t want to work for any other parties” but “it’s always a challenge to motivate people to get out.”
Mr Briggs said: “I’m personally disappointed for hard-working councillors who have lost their seats. Being a councillor is a tough gig.”
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 here