KEZIA Dugdale has told Nicola Sturgeon to “stop the muck raking” and listen to her critics after a nurse who challenged her in Sunday’s TV debate was subject to online attacks.

The Scottish Labour leader said the woman, Claire Austin from Edinburgh, has been the victim of a Nationalist “smear campaign” after putting the First Minister on the spot.

Ms Austin, 50, who said she used a food bank because of the NHS one per cent pay cap, told Ms Sturgeon: “You have no idea how demoralising it is to work within the NHS.”

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She immediately came under attack from SNP supporters, including former MP Joanna Cherry QC, who wrongly told the BBC the nurse was married to a Tory councillor.

Ms Cherry, the SNP candidate in Edinburgh South West, later took to Twitter to apologise.

The Tories claimed Social Security Minister Jeanne Freeman had been partly to blame by egging Ms Cherry on.

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However there was also widespread scepticism about Ms Austin's claims.

Social media users pointed out her Facebook page included numerous pictures of her wining and dining, including recently in New York, while her 19-year-old daughter, Storm, posted pictures of herself at fee-paying George Heriot’s school and also in New York.

Ms Austin responded on Twitter: “BEWARE! It is now a true representation of your life if you put your high days & holidays on social media even if pd 4 by friends & family.”

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Launching the Scottish Labour manifesto in Edinburgh, Ms Dugdale said the “tide was turning against the SNP” after its decade in office, but it refused to listen to people’s concerns.

She said: “It’s a message for Nicola Sturgeon: we’re fed up with your obsession with independence, and your indifference to what really matters to us.

“And what was the response of the SNP when confronted with reality last night?

“They started a smear campaign. They tried their usual dirty tricks. But it won’t work this time.

“Because more and more people are wise to the underhand ways of the SNP.

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“So here’s an idea for Nicola Sturgeon. Stop the muck raking. Stop the excuses.

“Listen to what the people of Scotland are telling you.”

Tory MSP Murdo Fraser, who was at the BBC Scotland leaders’ debate, said Ms Freeman had urged Ms Cherry to link Ms Austin to the Tories.

He said: “I was sitting alongside Joanna Cherry as she claimed on the BBC that the nurse was the wife of a Tory councillor. She was being urged to say so by the Scottish Government's welfare minister Jeanne Freeman.

“It was a disgraceful episode and Nicola Sturgeon and her party should be thoroughly ashamed. This smear operation points to something endemic within the SNP.

“Its supporters talk over critics, not listen. And the nationalists will always try to play the man not the ball. This kind of behaviour is utterly unacceptable.”

Campaigning in Perthshire, Ms Sturgeon defended her candidate.

She said: “In terms of Jo Cherry, of course I have confidence. She made a mistake, an honest mistake, and she apologised for that. In terms of the wider social media reaction, I don’t think it’s acceptable to make judgements about somebody’s background.”

“The nurse on the debate last night was absolutely entitled to raise the issue that she did and, as I said, she raised an issue that I think is one of the biggest in this campaign, the level and value of real wages, not just in the public sector but in the private sector.”

LibDem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton said the SNP must condemn its “cybernat” wing.

He said: “The First Minister faced perfectly fair questions from a nurse, which she was unable to answer. Within minutes the nurse was set on by the online Nationalist army.

"It was ugly, but is typical of a movement which has always been intolerant of differing views and is now losing support. The First Minister must launch an immediate investigation into who sanctioned this public mauling.

''Efforts to discredit the impartiality of a public sector worker went right to the top of the SNP, as shown by the comments made by Joanna Cherry, which were later retracted.

''Freedom of speech, especially the right to criticise our political leaders, is something we must cherish. That is why the First Minister must act now.''