While one Tory leadership contest rumbles on, another has come to a close. Russell Findlay was made the new leader of the Scottish Conservative party on Friday – and he’s enjoying his victory lap at Tory conference this weekend. At a fringe event today, the former crime journalist was keen to hammer home that his premiership will be about change – doesn’t that sound familiar – and told his audience he wants to ‘get down to the hard work of earning back the trust of the voters we’ve lost’. And with the recent leadership race shining a light on party infighting, he’s certainly got his work cut out…
But the Scottish leader couldn’t resist taking a pop at his political opponents, either. And on the matter of one particular party, Findlay was pulling no punches. Slamming Nigel Farage’s Reform UK, the new leader addressed concerns about the threat of the party’s growing popularity in Scotland. ‘We won five out of six seats, which was a fantastic result on the face of it,’ Findlay began, before turning his guns on his right-wing rivals:
The truth of the matter was our [vote] share was far, far too low. And much of that vote went to reform… But Nigel Farage, I believe, is an absolute chancer and he’s not the answer to these problems. He’s not interested in fixing people’s problems.
Shots fired. The Scottish Tory leader continued on in a less, er, combative tone:
This is this is going back to the beginning. This is resetting that relationship. We’ve lost trust. We have to rebuild that. We have to hold our hands up to where we got it wrong.
Quite. Whether Reform-bashing will help grow that trust Mr S is less convinced. Although, given recent revelations that the Scottish Conservative membership now looks even lower than, um, Alex Salmond’s Alba party, Findlay will be hoping it does…
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