Ross ‘optimistic’ over retaining second place
Tory leader insists his party won’t fall behind Labour
THE Scottish Tories are ‘very optimistic’ about retaining second place ahead of Labour in this week’s local elections.
Douglas Ross yesterday dismissed rumours he could quit as party leader if it slumps to third place behind the SNP and Labour, saying: ‘We’re going to have a good result.’
Despite the Tories at Westminster being dogged by controversies, a defiant Mr Ross claimed they would not affect the Scottish Conservatives’ performance on Thursday.
However, polling expert Sir John Curtice warned the Tories were ‘at risk’ of losing to Labour in Scotland for the first time since 2016 because of the ‘political maelstrom’ engulfing Downing Street.
On a campaign visit to Portobello in Edinburgh, Mr Ross said: ‘We’re not going to fall behind Labour. Last year, when people said Labour were going to overtake the Conservatives, Labour went backwards to their worstever result and lost seats. I’m very optimistic about what the Conservatives will do this week.’
Responding to a suggestion he may step down as Scottish Tory leader if the party performs poorly, Mr Ross told journalists: ‘I’m not going anywhere.
‘I’ve got a plan for this party to take us up to and beyond the next Scottish election, where we’re going to show people across Scotland that there is an alternative to the SNP.
‘They are a tired and failing government, they are shrouded in secrecy, they are not delivering for the people of Scotland and I’m very clear that I want to show right across the country that there is an alternative, and that is the Scottish Conservatives.’
He added: ‘It’s important to me because we have, as I see, some great councillors who will make great leaders and administrations if we can get the other parties to work with us to stop the SNP and lock them out of power. But at the moment, it seems Labour and the Liberal Democrats are willing to do deals with the SNP, and that’s what I want to stop in the lead up to Thursday because we know SNP-run administrations never challenge the Government at Holyrood to deliver for their local area.’
Campaigning in Portobello with her successor, former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson reiterated the calls she made in yesterday’s Scottish Daily Mail for tactical voting against the SNP. She said: ‘The thing that’s unique about the local party elections is you don’t just have one vote.’
Miss Davidson encouraged voters to put their local Conservative candidate as the number one choice, then rank pro-UK parties above the Nationalists to send a message that the SNP ‘can’t use this election as some sort of proxy for independence or a second referendum’. Ahead of the vote on May 5, Sir John said the SNP’s prospects were ‘difficult to assess’ as its poll support is no better than it was before its ‘disappointing’ 2017 performance.
In that election, the Scottish Conservatives nearly doubled their share of the first preference vote to 25 per cent, the party’s highest local election share since 1982, and the professor of politics at Strathclyde University said it would be an uphill struggle for the party to maintain second place.
On his What Scotland Thinks blog, Sir John wrote: ‘Every poll of Holyrood and Westminster constituency votes conducted since the ‘‘Partygate’’ row broke out just before Christmas has put the Conservatives behind Labour.’
While the polling expert said Scotland was ‘still some way away from a significant Labour ‘revival’, Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar hopes his party can show ‘progress’ at the local council election, admitting first place is ‘probably too tall an order’ at the moment.
‘You don’t just have one vote’
DOuGLAS Ross has not had his sorrows to seek lately. The Scottish Tory leader’s local election efforts have been overshadowed by the Partygate scandal and the fixed-penalty notices issues to the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. Recent headlines about Tory MPs’ personal conduct have not helped either.
Yet Ross remains remarkably upbeat. He maintains his party will not fall back into third place behind Labour and is fighting on a twopronged platform of good local government and strong opposition to the SNP at Holyrood. He has run a campaign of substance based on serious issues, such as lowering taxes, extending the school day and protecting women’s single-sex spaces.
Fairness seldom has much to do with politics but it seems grossly unjust that a man who obeyed the rules might carry the can for others who did not. Douglas Ross and the Scottish Tories deserve to be judged on their own policies and character.