THE Conservative candidate for Glasgow Pollok has been slammed for "heartless" comments about food bank users. 

UPDATE: He has now been suspended and the Scottish Conservatives are investigating the remarks 

Craig Ross, who hopes to unseat the SNP Justice Secretary Humza Yousaf at this year's Holyrood election, said that food bank users were more at risk for diabetes than hunger and said that desperate people using the vital services were often "fat".

Responding to the revelations, first reported in the Daily Record, Mr Yousaf called on the Tories to sack their man and branded him "heartless". 

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Mr Ross said in his podcast: "I’m not saying that every single person who claims to be really hungry and is reliant on charity is also very overweight, but what I am saying is if Channel 4 News is having a reasonable go at showing the reality of food bank usage, then we know that the people that they film are far from starving.

“If anything, their biggest risk is not starvation, it’s diabetes." 

We told previously how the former lecturer was pilloried on social media for boasting of how many pull-ups he could do in a bizarre jibe against the nationalists. 

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Mr Yousaf further blasted Mr Ross' comments regarding the findings of a report into the Metropolitan Police into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, which found the force to be "institutionally racist". 

Mr Ross said: "I remember my pal, the Metropolitan police officer, and his mates, and their reaction to that.

“How nauseated they were, how utterly sickened they were, to be told that there was something called institutional racism and that they worked in the institution and therefore they by implication were racists."

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The Justice Secretary said to deny institutional racism in the context of the 18-year-old Londoner's racially-motivated murder was "deplorable".

In a statement to the Record, a Scottish Conservative spokesman said: "We are investigating these comments which do not reflect the views of the party.”

The party has been approached for further comment.