Minogue ejected from toll meeting

A by-election candidate has been thrown out of a meeting where MSPs were discussing the Forth Road Bridge tolls.

Tom Minogue, who is campaigning to have the tolls abolished, was told to leave a meeting of the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee after staging a protest. The Dunfermline and West Fife candidate accused Labour MSP Helen Eadie of abusing her position on the committee, which was meeting in Dunfermline, and claimed she turned the event into a Labour Party husting.

The committee was discussing a petition put forward by a Fife minister calling for tolls on the crossing to be frozen at the current level of £1. Ms Eadie, MSP for Dunfermline East, told the meeting how politicians at all levels from her party had been campaigning on the issue.

She described the bridge as being "an absolute lifeline" for people in central and east Scotland, adding: "Every politician north of the River Forth has been campaigning on this, every Labour MEP, MP, MSP and councillors in Fife."

But as she was suggesting ways in which the committee could take the issue forward, she was interrupted by Mr Minogue's protest form the public benches.

He stood up and shouted: "Helen Eadie is using this as a platform, she is using this as a political stunt. It's disgraceful."

Mr Minogue, who has asked Holyrood standards chief Jim Dyer to investigate Ms Eadie's comments, was immediately told to leave and was ushered out of the Glen Pavilion, where the meeting was being held, by security staff.

Press Association / Scotsman