Do you remember how during the SNP leadership contest in 2022 that Kate Forbes uttered some fairly measured criticisms of the record of her rival Humza Yousaf and the Scottish media dined out on how nasty and bitter the leadership race had become? It’s the Scottish Tories’ turn for a leadership contest and they’re doing the Scottish political version of Crocodile Dundee saying: “Call that a knife? *This* is a knife.” And if you are old enough to get that reference it’s probably about time you called your doctor to arrange giving a poo sample.
The Scottish Conservative leadership contest has descended into chaos and bitter recriminations after the Telegraph newspaper published highly damaging allegations about just how sleekit and underhand Douglas Ross really is. Before he did the dirty on a sick David Duguid to stand down in the Moray East constituency, Douglas Ross had pressured the candidate in Moray West Nairn and Strathspey to stand down, promising her a list seat in Holyrood. This new seat was largely formed out of Ross’s Moray constituency but a new Tory candidate had been selected as Ross had assured the party that he’d get on with the day job of leading the Tories in Holyrood and would not try to get back into Westminster. Reader, he lied.
Ross told the newly selected candidate, Kathleen Robertson, that if he was chosen as the candidate he would immediately stand down as the Scottish Tory leader at Holyrood as “his heart was in Westminster, not Holyrood”. We had kinda worked that out already Dougie. The plan was for him to step down and arrange a coronation for his pal Russell Findlay, who is currently one of the six leadership candidates vying to replace Ross.
All the while he was plotting to get himself a Westminster seat, Ross was assuring his colleagues on the Tory benches in the Scottish Parliament that he was completely committed to leading the party in Holyrood. Well who knew Douglas Ross was such a lying duplicitous underhand and self interested snake? Well, just about anyone who has ever had the misfortune of having any dealings with him.
Even before these latest revelations came to light, the leadership contest was already mired in rancour and bad blood. Four of the candidates had alleged that the party leadership was trying to stich up the contest and turn it into a charade in order to ensure that Russell Findlay got the job. The Scottish Tories, having no respect for democracy!? I’m shocked I tell you, shocked.
Findlay was formerly a journalist – I use that word advisedly – at the Sun and has been accused by other candidates of using the gutter smear techniques so closely associated with that paper to plant damaging stories about the other leadership candidates in the right wing press.
Following the publication of the story in the Telegraph, four of the six leadership candidates signed an open letter calling on Ross to explain himself and demanding that the party’s ruling body take steps to ensure that the leadership contest really is open and fair. All four alleged that Findlay was being given favourable treatment by the party leadership. The only candidates who did not sign the letter and openly criticise Ross were deputy leader Meghan Gallacher and, surprise surprise, Russell Findlay.
However by tea time on Friday Gallacher too had joined the chorus of criticism against Douglas Ross and resigned as deputy leader, leaving just Russell Findlay hiding under a pile of Sun newspapers carrying smear stories about his rivals. By the evening Findlay was forced to issue a statement saying he had no knowledge of the conversations reported in the Telegraph about Douglas Ross’s plan to resign and install him as the new party leader, a statement which has a similar truth value as the assertions of Ross that he was dedicated to leading the Tory party in the Scottish Parliament.
Findlay added without any apparent irony or self awareness: ‘I am standing to change our party and recent developments underline why change is so necessary.’
Jackson Carlaw, who was ousted as leader in a putsch organised by Ruth Davidson, has called on Ross to step down immediately and not to remain as leader until the contest has concluded since the leadership candidates can no longer have confidence that he is impartial in the contest.
Ruth Davidson is also keeping a very low profile as her party tears itself apart due to the self interested and arrogant entitlement of the man she personally chose as party leader. What is going on right now speaks volumes about Davidson’s poor judgement. She imposed Ross on the Scottish Tories and turned a blind eye to his abundant character flaws. In her defence you could argue that being a Scottish Tory is a pretty big character flaw all by itself, but even by those standards it has always been obvious that Douglas Ross is a particularly nasty piece of work.
When his plan to get Kathleen Robertson in Moray West to stand down fell through, Ross turned his attention to Moray East and sitting MP David Duguid when the latter was recovering from a serious illness and ensured that he was unceremoniously dumped as the Tory candidate, allowing Ross to muscle his way in to a safer seat than the razor thin majority in the reformed Moray West Nairn and Strathspey seat where he was technically the sitting MP. The anger that the move sparked off forced Ross to announce that he’d stand down as leader of the Scottish Tories after the general election
That plan backfired spectacularly when not even the Tories of Moray could stomach the idea of Ross hanging around their constituency for the next five years like a school bully hiding behind the bike shed. If Douglas Ross displays such little loyalty to his own friends and party colleagues you can be quite certain he’d sell out his constituents the second he thought it served his personal interests to do so.
His political career is now in ruins, brought down by his own arrogance and entitlement. They don’t come more Tory than Douglas Ross. Now even Russell Findlay is trying to distance himself from him. Karma’s a thing, Douglas.
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