DOUGLAS Ross had promised to make the “strongest possible representations” to No10 after it barred the media from a Q&A with Rishi Sunak at the Scottish Tory conference.

The mishandling of the event led to a revolt by journalists who had been excluded in favour of hand-picked newspaper titles, many of them sympathetic to the Tories.

There were chaotic scenes at the SEC in Glasgow as it emerged only the Daily Telegraph, Daily Mail, Daily Express, Scottish Sun, The Times and the P&J could participate.

The PA news agency was also to have been allowed to take part. 

However all other titles, including the Herald, Scotsman, National, Daily Record, and the i newspaper, were to be excluded from the room and not even allowed to listen. 

There was an hour-long stand-off between the media and No10 staffers before Mr Sunak appeared, taking questions from the favoured outlets, but with others also in attendance.

Asked about the plan for restricting access to the media descending into chaos, Mr Sunak denied it had happened.

He said: “That is absolutely not my understanding of what's happened.” 

He added: “That's just completely wrong. Just just completely wrong.”

However, speaking to a media ‘huddle’ after delivering his own speech, Mr Ross made no attempt to disguise the botched nature of the event, which led to a wave of bad headlines.

He said: "It was unnecessary, it shouldn't have happened. 

“I always speak to the press, I speak to all of you, we'll have as many questions as you need to take.

"You were rightly upset about it and sorted it amongst yourselves to make sure that at least more of you were in the room.

"I'll be making the strongest possible representations to No10 about it.

"We've had this a long time ago in the past with other political parties so I'm acutely aware of how it looks and how it's wrong.

"I can only act on my behalf and that's why I'm going to take every single one of your questions this afternoon."

He then took questions for around 25 minutes from the press.