Kate Forbes’s nightmare 24 hours

It seems that Kate Forbes’ stance on same-sex marriage hasn’t gone down too well with some of her more socially liberal backers. Within 24 hours of announcing her candidacy, the Finance Secretary’s campaign has actually gone backwards, managing to lose four MSPs following an interview in which she said that she would not have supported gay marriage as a ‘matter of conscience.’  That was enough for some of her SNP colleagues at Holyrood. One by one they trooped out on Twitter to deliver their lines of condemnation:

1. Richard Lochhead MSP – ‘I welcomed my colleague Kate Forbes’ decision to join the SNP leadership contest given her talents & felt it would give us a real contest: new ideas and a new approach that we desperately need. However, I agree we can’t have a Party Leader who’d vote against same sex marriage.’
2. Gillian Martin MSP – ‘We must be full throated in our support of equal marriage.