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Anas Sarwar was criticised by social media users after it was alleged he had criticised Scottish comedy legend Billy Connolly.
An image which spread across X showed the Scottish Labour leader claiming Connolly was “vulgar and outdated” and that he would “end the culture of vulgarness” in Scotland if his party won a majority at the next election.
Ferret Fact Service looked at this claim and found it False.
The image that was shared across social media appears to show an online article with the headline “Sarwar says Billy Connolly is outdated vulgar and offensive”. The subheadline goes on to state that Sarwar has said he is not a Connolly fan, and “comedians like him do not represent the Scottish people with their vulgar and offensive humor”.
It was shared by multiple accounts on X and Facebook, and was reposted hundreds of times, after being shared initially on 23 February.
Scottish Labour denied he ever said this, and a source told The Daily Record it was “weird nationalist disinformation”.
Anas Sarwar has previously stated his admiration for Billy Connolly and his comedy, describing him as the “best comedian I have ever had the pleasure to see in the flesh”.
The article that has been screenshotted does not appear to be real, and Ferret Fact Service could not find any reference to it or similar articles referencing Sarwar’s alleged dislike of Connolly other than in the image itself.
Nor does there appear to be any reference to Sarwar attempting to “end the culture of vulgarness” in Scotland as part of his policy platform ahead of the next election.
In the shared screenshot, there are a few telltale signs that it has been mocked up, rather than come from a reputable news source. It is intended to look like an article from a mainstream newspaper, but has no publication name.
The image of Anas Sarwar appears to be slightly too big for the space it is in, and the text below it is extremely close to the bottom of the image. The caption also does not line up with the image itself, or the headline text.
This suggests it has been put together using editing software rather than directly screenshotted from an article. There are also a number of grammatical errors, and unusual wording that is unlikely to come from a mainstream news outlet.
The image shared across social media is not accurate. It is not a real news website page, and has been created using a graphics editing programme. Anas Sarwar has no policy to “end the culture of vulgarness”, and has praised Billy Connolly publicly a number of times.
Ferret Fact Service (FFS) is a non-partisan fact checker, and signatory to the International Fact-Checking Network fact-checkers’ code of principles.
All the sources used in our checks are publicly available and the FFS fact-checking methodology can be viewed here.
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