Tory councillor jokes about people who ‘tested explosives’ in Belfast

A Tory councillor joked about terrorist incidents in Belfast, saying people there “tested explosives” in a “not very friendly way”.

Phil Doggart, a member of Edinburgh City Council, made the remark as he spoke at a fringe event at the Scottish Conservative conference in Aberdeen.

Tory MSP Brian Whittle told the Blue Collar Conservative meeting he used to “test explosives” in a previous job when he worked as an industrial chemist working for ICI at Ardeer in Ayrshire.

Mr Doggart recalled growing up in Belfast and said: “When I grew up there were lots of people who tested explosives in Belfast in a not very friendly way.”

He also said that when Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 he had “never seen anything like her”.

The Tory said: “When Margaret Thatcher won there was this strange woman who appeared on my TV, I have never seen anything like her in my life because we didn’t have people like her in Belfast.”