A Conservative youth leader has been criticised by his own party after suggesting a Lottery-winning couple who pledged £2million in political donations should have spent the money on weight-loss surgery.
Aberdeen University student James Sutherland-Harper, 21, directed his comments at Colin and Chris Weir, from Largs, who scooped the UK’s biggest ever jackpot in 2011.
The social media outburst is the second involving a young Tory activist in the north-east this year.
Scottish Conservative party leaders ordered Sutherland-Harper, who reads politics, to remove the Facebook comment about the Weirs, who donated £1million to the Scottish independence campaign in November 2011 and went on to give £1million to the SNP – the party’s biggest single pledge – last April.
It read: “And to think the YESNP hark on about ‘rich Tory donors’.
“I’ll be a very happy boy on September 19 when the Weirs wake up to discover they’ve p****d £2million of their fortune down the drain and could’ve spent it far better.
“Perhaps liposuction or a gastric band procedure would be a good place to start?”
Sutherland-Harper, who is the national secretary of party youth wing Conservative Future Scotland, declined to comment last night.
But a spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives said: “This was clearly an unacceptable thing to say and he was told by the party to remove it immediately, which he did.”
It comes just two months after the Scottish Conservatives distanced themselves from an Aberdeen campaigner who launched a series of online attacks on popular entertainers.
Chad MacGregor, who claimed to be the party’s campaign manager in the city, branded presenter Hardeep Singh Kohli and actor Alan Cumming “lefty, Z-list celebrities” on Twitter.
The former Aberdeen Youth Council member went on to accuse comedian Janey Godley – a former Scotswoman of the Year nominee – of being a poor role model for her daughter, Ashley Storrie, after she waded into the row.
A Tory spokesman insisted Mr MacGregor was not a party official.
But an Aberdeen Conservative website launched just days after the row named him as campaigns organiser for the local executive committee.