Media representatives confront the PM’s press team (pic: Terry Murden)

Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross has chastised Rishi Sunak’s Downing Street aides after a press conference descended into an unseemly spat with the Scottish media.

An attempt to restrict the number of journalists allowed to speak to the Prime Minister after his speech to the party’s conference in Glasgow prompted an angry backlash from those, including Daily Business and camera crews who, initially, were excluded from the so-called media “huddle”.

Amid suspicions that the six media outlets selected were broadly sympathetic to the Conservative party, the dispute led to some angry exchanges as the press pack gate-crashed the room set aside for the Q&A session.

Mr Sunak’s aides proposed a number of alternative arrangements and after an hour-long stand-off a truce eventually emerged allowing questions from the six journalists who were originally invited, one pooled broadcast interview while all other journalists were allowed to attend but not speak.

By that time there had been a flurry of tweets from journalists angry at the attempt to prevent access. Downing Street even complained about one tweet posted by a journalist from The Guardian. Once an agreement had been reached a press officer at the event said to the amused journalists: “You can all delete your tweets about us restricting access.”

When Mr Sunak finally emerged he was challenged about the lack of access, but attempted to play down the incident. “That is absolutely not my understanding of what happened,” he said.

He restricted his replies to the six questions by referring to his party’s attempts to tackle the cost of living. “This is the people’s priority and we are focused on that,” he said.

Douglas Ross later said Downing Street’s actions were “unnecessary”, adding:  “It shouldn’t have happened. I always speak to the press. I speak to all of you. You will have as many questions as you need. You were rightly upset about it. I’ll be making the strongest possible representations to No 10 about it.”

Former Scottish Tory leader Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links endorsed a tweet by one of her former press officers that complained about the struggle of persuading successive Conservative administrations “not to be dicks” at Scottish conferences.

Commenting on the attempt to restrict press access to the Prime Minister, Scottish Labour deputy leader Jackie Baillie said: “The attempt to bar the press from asking questions was a desperate and cowardly act that has back-fired spectacularly.”