Anas Sarwar has accused John Swinney ’s government of “deceptive and dishonest tactics” after SNP ministers claimed he misled Parliament over cancelled NHS operations.

In a furious letter to the First Minister , the Scottish Labour leader demanded an apology from Health Secretary Neil Gray and SNP MSP Gordon MacDonald, accusing both men of either failing to understand basic statistics or deliberately trying to “deceive the public”.

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The row began after Mr Sarwar told MSPs during First Minister’s Questions on Wednesday November 13 that “almost 600 more” operations had been cancelled in the months leading into this winter compared with the same period last year.

He exact words were: “Let us look at operations. Last winter, almost 4,500 operations were cancelled, but

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