Can the new Scottish Tory leader thwart Nicola Sturgeon?

As a boy, Douglas Ross, the new leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party, had two interests: cows and football. Growing up on a dairy farm in Moray, he never aspired to hold political office. He enjoyed the solitude of early morning milking. ‘Some people like big tractors, other people like sheep. I was just really interested in dairy cattle, and Holsteins in particular,’ he explained earlier this year.

Now he finds himself faced with one of the more daunting tasks in British politics: thwarting Nicola Sturgeon and, in the process, preserving the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In 2016, Ruth Davidson identified Ross as one of the most talented new Tory MSPs produced by that year’s Holyrood election. If Ross had not surprisingly defeated the Scottish National party’s deputy leader Angus Robertson in Moray at the 2017 Westminster election, he would probably have succeeded Davidson when she stepped down last August.

Instead the leadership was bequeathed to Jackson Carlaw, a florid used-car salesman from whom it transpired the Scottish electorate would not buy a used car. Last week, senior members of the Scottish party, many of them still allied with Davidson,-handed Carlaw a hefty dram and a revolver and invited him to do the decent thing. Having lost half the party’s MPs in December, and languishing in the opinion polls, Carlaw, a loyal party man to the end, recognised that his race was run. The way thus became clear for Ross to be parachuted into the role.

The coup took most Tory MSPs by surprise, even if they also rapidly welcomed it. The arrangement is not without its challenges, however. As a Westminster MP, Ross will have to wait until next year’s Holyrood elections before he can assume full control.