Mhairi Black: Alex Salmond offered to help give me a makeover

The SNP’s most prominent rising star has disclosed how she rejected an offer from Alex Salmond to help her choose clothes and give herself a makeover.

Mhairi Black said Mr Salmond had offered the services of close friend Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, who also lost her seat in June’s general election, to take her out shopping and improve her wardrobe.

The 23-year-old Paisley and Renfrewshire South MP said Mr Salmond told her he had held the same conversation with a young Nicola Sturgeon but she retorted: “I am never going to be told how to dress, especially by a man.”

In an interview with Holyrood magazine, she also disclosed that she has never held an in-depth, one-to-one conversation with Ms Sturgeon despite being touted as a future SNP leader.

Miss Black said her “awkward” conversation with Mr Salmond was one of the few she has had with senior figures in the SNP and claimed the party needs a “kick up the backside” to give its group of MPs more support.

Disclosing how she sat down with the former First Minister following her election in 2015, the gay MP said: “I was just sitting chatting away to him and the whole time I’m thinking, what’s the point of this meant to be – is this a date, do I need to come out to Alex Salmond?

“It was fine, really, he was just giving me tips here and there and then he says, ‘I’m sure Taz will take you out to go shopping or something at some point and you’ll find your own style’.

“He then said that the last time he’d had this conversation it was with a young woman called Nicola Sturgeon. I thought, ‘oh, very good’ and I just left the awkward silence hanging when he asked me if I wanted him to arrange it with Taz.”

Miss Black, who is the youngest MP in the Commons, said the only time she had held a substantive conversation with Ms Sturgeon was when the First Minister asked her to help with the party’s youth campaign in last year’s Scottish election.

Fiona Hyslop, the Culture Minister, was assigned to offer her mentoring support in the 2015 general election campaign but they only met twice, with Miss Black adding “I think I frightened her”.