It is now time for our party to win voters’ trust back

Friday’s local election results in Glasgow were bruising for my party and I won’t try and use my first column since the election to sugarcoat them.

Despite our strong local message on Cleaning Up Glasgow that resonated with voters, the Glasgow Conservatives lost some excellent local representatives. I am beyond gutted to be losing brilliant colleagues who I had the privilege of working alongside in the City Chambers since 2017.

For my own part I was delighted to hold onto my seat in the Shettleston Ward. When I took one of the four ward seats in 2017, it was completely against the odds and the first time Shettleston had elected a Conservative representative in over 100 years. I am proud to continue as the councillor for the community I call home.

I believe I have worked hard and stood up for my community over the last five years. I am glad that many were able to put local politics above their party politics.

I want to say a personal thank you to every person in Shettleston who put their trust in me, and I pledge to continue to fight for local residents and put their interests first, above all else. A special congratulations to my ward colleagues Frank McAveety, Laura Docherty and Jill Pidgeon on being elected to serve alongside me for the next five years.

The Glasgow Conservatives might be down, but we are not out. We will continue to fight for Glaswegians in the City Chambers.

Alongside my brilliant new colleague Councillor John Daly who was elected in Baillieston, we’ll continue to stand up for our communities and provide an alternative voice to the cosy consensus in Glasgow City

Council. It was an honour to lead the Glasgow Conservatives throughout this campaign and speak to voters right across the city.

I thank 17,000 people for giving us their first preference votes. It will be up to me, John and our fantastic Glasgow Conservative MSPs, Annie Wells and Sandesh Gulhane, to rebuild and lead the fightback in Glasgow.

There is no denying that the national picture had an impact on our results locally. My position on the Prime Minister has been clear since January and that hasn’t changed. He must see the damage that his actions have had on local candidates across the United Kingdom.

As ever with a bad election result there is always an inquest and people are keen to voice their own opinions. I can’t lie that I’m disappointed that we fell into third place behind Labour after many years of electoral success.

However, there was many in the commentariat that were predicting oblivion.

While I was saddened to lose friends in Glasgow and elsewhere, there were still moments of brightness among the gloom.

This is a time for our party to listen to the anger and concerns from voters and win their trust back. It is a time to reenergise, not to start petty infighting. That is exactly what the nationalists want.

We must continue to hold Nicola Sturgeon, Susan Aitken and other SNP figures to account and show the real alternative the Scottish Conservatives can deliver for our communities who have been let down by the SNP over the last 15 years.

It won’t be easy, but I am up for the fight and next time Glasgow, my party won’t let you down.