Sacked minister Gillian Martin: I was victim of '˜game playing'

Sacked minister Gillian Martin suggested she was the victim of 'game playing' after she took up a new post chairing a Holyrood committee.

Sacked Scottish minister Gillian Martin

The SNP MSP has been appointed convener of the Scottish Parliament’s Environment, Climate Change and Land Reform Committee.

The appointment was made just over two months after she was removed as higher education minister before her appointment could be ratified.

Ms Martin, MSP for Aberdeenshire East, departed Nicola Sturgeon’s government after the emergence of “offensive” blog posts in which she used derogatory language to describe transgender people and black people.

In an interview with the Press and Journal, Ms Martin suggested that criticism she had received was “to score political points rather than being personal”.

When asked about change in forturne, she said: “From my perspective, I think that a majority of people in this place (Holyrood) – although there is game playing going on in the chamber – know when it is a game and it is something that has been done to score political points rather than being personal.

“Even those that took things at face value when it happened have since had time to reflect on it and found out about the background, about what I actually was and wasn’t.”

Ms Sturgeon removed Ms Martin from Government after the contents of her 2007 blog were publicised.

In it, the Aberdeenshire East MSP asked whether efforts to promote transgender rights would lead to images of “hairy knuckled, lipstick wearing transitional laydees (sic)” appearing in colleges.