Unspun Scottish Tories lose their grip on the Union card as Douglas Ross loses the plot
Late Show
NICOLA Sturgeon’s selfie addiction saw her rock up almost two hours late to an SNP event at a blustery Portobello beach last Sunday, where she then spent another hour getting a fix with voters. It meant the assembled Holyrood hacks spent almost half their working day shivering until the First Minister granted them 10 minutes at the end. “Nae wonder those ferries are five years late,” sniffed one onlooker.
Seaside peer
SCOTTISH Tory leader Douglas Ross and his more famous successor Ruth Davidson were at Portobello the following day, although with less sun and no wellwishers. The pair sooked on ice creams for the cameras, with Dougie getting a blue bubblegum and Ruth a pink strawberry, no doubt representing pro- and anti-boris factions. At the end, and in the absence of a dog to feed it to, Baroness Davidson summoned press officer David Bateman and regally handed him the remains of her snack. The poor chap ran off to the bins with it, and was duly christened her “cone butler” by the media.
Groan yersel
AS is her trademark, Ms Sturgeon was audibly exasperated at a question in a recent interview, letting the reporter know he was a twit. Her girning appeared in print as “Ach”, leading a colleague to confuse it with the Holyrood shorthand for Alex Cole-hamilton. Though given the usual reaction the Scottish Libdem leader can elicit, perhaps he should be a swear word. If that sounds harsh, ACH can seek consolation in his telepathy. On Thursday he organised a photo shoot with Prosecco outside the Edinburgh count seven hours before the polls closed – and his forecast Libdem revival duly came to pass.
Creep sweep
ARE we seeing the death of the swot at Holyrood? We do hope so. After the Tories asked constitution boss Angus Robertson about secret legal advice on Indyref2 on Tuesday, Nat MSPS Gillian Martin and Collette Stevenson both tried to help him out by jabbering about the SNP’S manifesto. Presiding Officer Alison Johnstone was having none of it. “It is essential supplementary questions refer to the substantive question on the paper,” she said, after cutting them both off. Get telt!
Pure buzzin’
THE final FMQS before the election was also the weirdest of the year, as proceedings were delayed by the sound system in the Holyrood chamber having a hissy fit. It started on the Labour benches, where one of the voting consoles started making noises like an electronic whoopee cushion. It then spread to the SNP benches, where another started erupting. The two then performed a flatulent duet, with a techie’s ringtone adding a chattering monkey noise to the cacophony. After 20 minutes of nonsense, Douglas Ross asked Nicola Sturgeon about ferries. Again. There is now a campaign to have every FMQS delayed – or preferably postponed – in the same delightful way.
Pauline conversion
BEFORE the 2014 referendum, the Labour for Independence group was livid when Anas Sarwar denounced it in the Commons as a front “led mainly by the SNP”. One of the signatories to an irate letter about this slur was its leading light Paul Leinster. Whatever became of him? He was yesterday elected as an SNP councillor in Glasgow. Oh, and he’s Nicola Sturgeon’s office manager. Shame on Mr Sarwar for being so paranoid back in the day.
GIVEN that politics is already a cruel business, it makes little sense to goad it into doing its worst.
Yet Douglas Ross seemed determined to make a perilous situation more dangerous still.
Before Partygate, even before Boris Johnson became PM, the Scottish Tory leader should have known this council election was going to be an uphill struggle.
His party was a hostage to its own success. In 2017, the party, then under Ruth Davidson, had exceeded its wildest expectations.
Fuelled by Nicola Sturgeon’s rash promise a few weeks earlier to hold another referendum on the back of Brexit, the Tories were able to focus the anti-snp backlash.
Ms Davidson’s troops surged from 115 councillors to 276, while Labour slumped from 394 to 262.
The Tories moved into second place, but by just 14 councillors.
It was the party’s best result in 35 years. It was always highly unlikely that such a high level of support would be repeated.
But Mr Ross spoke and acted as if the maths was on his side. As late as Monday, he told The Herald: “I’m really confident that we will maintain second place and we will have a really good result.”
That would have been foolhardy at the best of times. But after six months of Westminster sleaze, Partygate and the cost of living crisis, it was little short of fantasy.
Yesterday he said voters had sent a message “they are not happy with the Prime Minister, they are not happy with Partygate”, as if it was nothing to do with him.
But Mr Ross was no passive observer. He launched himself headlong into the row over Mr Johnson’s future by demanding he quit then demanding he stay.
As the former Tory MSP Adam Tomkins tweeted: “Douglas Ross owns this, not Boris. It was Douglas who U-turned, Douglas who flipped, and Douglas who backed the PM. He and his team need to own the consequences.”
There was palpable anger among Tory activists at counts yesterday. They knew what was coming, but their leader did nothing to avert it, only made himself look ridiculous.
One Tory source said the party hierarchy had been in denial for weeks. Another that it “needs to be having a closer examination of its strategy or even develop one”.
Perhaps the key development is that the Tories have lost their grip on the Union card. The party is no longer the main refuge for those worried by the SNP. Voters have shown they will back Labour and the Liberal Democrats instead.
As Mr Ross rues his choices this weekend, Anas Sarwar and Alex Cole-hamilton will be looking at how to build on their progress to make a Labour-libdem coalition a serious prospect on the far side of the 2026 Holyrood election.