Anas Sarwar has teased Scotland’s national clinical director Jason Leitch by likening him to a politician.
The Scottish Labour leader revealed Leitch taught him dentistry at uni and joked his own switch to politics reflected badly on his ex-teacher.
Leitch has been a regular presence during the pandemic, regularly flanking First Minister Nicola Sturgeon during covid briefings.
He has also taken the Government’s message onto popular programmes like the BBC ‘s ‘Off the Ball’ with Tam Cowan and Stuart Cosgrove.
However, some figures at Holyrood believe unelected figures like Leitch should have a lower profile.
Sarwar, who like Professor Leitch started off as a dentist, ribbed his old lecturer in an on-stage interview with comedian Matt Forde.
Speaking about his stint working in the NHS, the Glasgow MSP said his aunt wanted him to become a dentist and as a teen his ambition was to practice in sun-kissed California.
In light-hearted banter, he said of Leitch: “He was my professor at university. And it shows you how bad he was at his job that I left dentistry and went into politics.”
He added: “He thinks he’s a politician more than I do!”
Speaking to the Record, Leitch cheekily hit back at his former student: “He’s using my line, it’s how I introduce him to others. I’ve done my very best to avoid the politics of the pandemic for two years, sometimes he makes it tricky!”
In the wide-ranging interview, Sarwar also addressed the question of indyref2.
“I honestly think if there was a referendum tomorrow they’d [the SNP] lose,” he said.
“And I think they know that. And so all we are doing here is keeping Scotland on pause and repeat, pause and repeat, to hold a certain percentage of the population together so they stay in power.”
He said of Nicola Sturgeon’s SNP: “You’ve got to give them credit for the fact that they have made a large part of the population believe that a referendum on independence is just round the corner.
“And they have kept people thinking that for seven years, and kept them on that precipice. That is a political skill in itself.”
He was also asked about voters in Scotland backing staying in the European Union in 2016.
“There was a poll recently [which] showed that over 70% of young people aged 16-24 either supported SNP or supported independence. Now, I’m not surprised by that figure.
“If you think about it, in that 16-24 age bracket, a large number of them, if not the majority of them, have not lived a single day of their adult life in a stable United Kingdom - they’ve lived with a Brexit referendum, the fallout of the Brexit referendum, with the chaos of Theresa May, the chaos of Boris Johnson.”
But he warned: “Every single argument that made Brexit chaotic and the wrong decision for the United Kingdom, multiply it by at least three times - that’s the consequences of leaving the United Kingdom.”
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