Nicola Sturgeon has backed the cartoonist Steve Bell, accused of anti-Scottish racism for a provocative comic strip in the Guardian.
In the cartoon, a sour-faced Ms Sturgeon says: “I will never ever compromise on our core demand for incest and country dancing.” It caused a storm of protest online, with some on Twitter saying they would complain to the police.
Ms Sturgeon said she had not seen the cartoon but added: “Cartoonists are there to provoke and to satirise. I’m not going to comment on different cartoons — that’s their job to poke fun at people.”
Bell’s text paraphrased conductor Sir Thomas Beecham who said people should “try everything once except incest and folk dancing”.
The cartoon appeared to infuriate some of the paper’s own readers. One wrote: “If I was a Muslim or a Jew the law would protect me from this filth. But not, apparently, if I am a Scotsman. You just lost me, I’m off to join the SNP right now.”
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Another Scot said: “Given [the Guardian’s] cowardly refusal to reproduce the Charlie Hebdo cartoons, one is forced to conclude that . . . some targets are easier than others.”