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A TORY minister’s dismissal of racist party donor comments as “trivia” has been met with astonishment from Scottish First Minister Humza Yousaf.
The Tory Party’s largest recorded donor Frank Hester’s comments that socialist MP Diane Abbott made him “want to hate all black women” and that she“should be shot” were last week branded racist by politicians of all parties.
But the Tories have so far refused to return his millions of pounds in donations and when challenged in the Commons on Wednesday, Business Secretary Kemi Badenoch dismissed the issue as “trivia.”
She added: “We need to focus on what matters to the British people.”
Asked on Robert Peston’s ITV programme for his reaction to the comments, Mr Yousaf said: “I was astonished when I heard that.
“How you can describe somebody saying that a black female MP should be shot as trivial?
“I think as people of colour who are in senior positions of government and senior positions in public life, we’ve got two choices — we can either reach down and give other people our hand and pull them up with us or we can pull the ladder up behind us.”
