New Scottish Tory leader reveals his plans to become next FM
man who has a portrait of Margaret Thatcher on the wall of his Holyrood off ice and a bust of Winston Churchill on the table.
But any idea that the 60-year- old will be happy to lead a party in eternal opposition with no real aspiration for power is misguided.
It is his cherished belief that the 2021 Scottish Parliament election can provide a breakthrough moment for the Conservative vote in Scotland.
He said: “We will face the electorate 14 years after the SNP came to power and I think the whole range of public services are now in a worse state than they were a decade ago.
“We start from a stronger position than the SNP did in 2003. We have more MSPs than they did and I believe, with the right agenda, we can do it.
“I don’t think the Conservatives will win a majority in Holyrood but our ambition will be to become the largest party.”
Carlaw, who won the race to succeed Ruth Davidson in February, added: “I have instructed the party to start reviewing the policies we have here in Scotland. There will be policies on welfare and higher education funding, where I think we will decide to leave our previous position behind and adopt a fresh approach.
“Our current policy on higher education funding is one we are reviewing and I expect us to come out of that with a different policy.
“That probably means we will be abandoning our support for a graduate contribution and, therefore, support free higher education.
“There are aspects of welfare, including the two- child tax cap, which we are looking at, so some changes will be fundamental.”
As things stand, the Conservatives in Scotland have opposed the SNP’s f lagship policy of free university tuition while refusing to go against the UK Government’s cap on child benefit. The limit, introduced in April 2017, restricts universal credit and tax credits worth £2780 per child per year to the first two children.
The Tor y Government in Westminster has championed the policy, which will cut the benefits bill by £1billion a year by 2021.
It is an issue that could drive a clear wedge between Carlaw and the PM.
But the idea of challenging and, if necessary, opposing Johnson is not something that keeps the former businessman awake at night.
He said: “When I met the Prime Minister, I explained my objective was to do what is right for Scotland and he said he absolutely gets that.
“He said he had to do the same thing with David Cameron when he was mayor of London.”
The Scottish Conservatives have always struggled to shake off their image of a party of the rich.
Eastwood MSP Carlaw is a public schoolboy from Glasgow’s Newton Mearns – his dad owned a large car dealership – and the party has a number of aristocratic MSPs, including millionaire landowners Donald Cameron and Peter Chapman.
But he added: “There is a lot less entitlement in the Conservative Party than when I was younger. However, that is something I see in the SNP.
“The further away you get from the politicians involved in the long march from opposition to power, the more you have a generation born into their political life as the government of power. They see it as their natural right to be there and become arrogant and removed from reality.
“I’m determined we will be a more representative party of the whole of Scotland, so I want far more women on our benches and far more ethnic minority MSPs.
“The only two ethnic minority politicians in Parliament went to the same private school in Glasgow.
That’s hardly representative of the wider ethnic base of modern
Scotland. I will be ruthless in using the regional l ist to make sure candidates we select in Scotland are more representative of the Scotland we seek to represent.”
Carlaw wi l l not be entirely changing his par ty’s stance. Complete opposition to a second independence referendum wi l l continue, as will support for Brexit.
His bid for Holyrood glory comes despite him having been part of the campaign against the Scottish Parliament’s formation. He also admits to having been a Labour supporter in his youth.
He added: “As a teenager, I was attracted to Labour but in the
70s I saw a crisis in the country that needed leadership and that leadership was offered by Margaret Thatcher.
“In the beginning, I was sceptical about what the Scottish
Parliament would do but it’s been established for 20 years and I accept it is the vehicle through which I need to argue to change
Scotland for the better.”