To Scotland, where another Tory leadership race is starting to take shape. Now a second candidate has thrown their hat into the ring as Brian Whittle MSP has today announced his bid to join the Scottish Conservative leadership race – confirming there will indeed be a contest. Game on…
The former athlete told the Scotsman that he will help the party ‘prepare for the next race’, promising his campaign will emphasise education, enterprise, and empowerment whilst stressing the importance of ‘telling hard truths’. Pointing to his party’s recent election result, the South Scotland MSP insisted:
Losing hurts, every single time. It doesn’t matter whether it’s in politics, in business, in sport, or in any other competition. For me though, it’s not the losses that matter – it’s how I respond to them. One of the most valuable things I learned in sport is resilience – that drive to brush yourself off, pick yourself up and start thinking about how to beat whoever beat you. That’s the moment we’re in as Scottish Conservatives. This leadership is when we decide how we pick ourselves up and prepare for the next race. It is my intention to stand in the leadership contest.
The ex-Olympian’s announcement follows that of Russell Findlay, the party’s current justice spokesperson who declared his candidacy last week. Findlay pledged that under his leadership the party will ‘reconnect with our traditional values of enterprise, self-reliance, fiscal responsibility and the rule of law’ before blasting much of the Scottish political class as ‘a self-satisfied left-wing intelligentsia’. Ouch…
While the justice spokesperson and former investigative journalist is not afraid to lambast his opponents – he slammed the SNP for running an ‘ever-more intrusive government’ before hitting out at Labour for its ‘belief in state intervention first’ – recent threats directed at Findlay have put a dampener on proceedings. The ex-crime journalist was the victim of an acid attack in 2015 and, as reported by the Scottish Daily Mail, has received police warnings more recently of a plot to kill him. The death threat has prompted Holyrood’s parties to come together over security improvements, with potential leadership rival Murdo Fraser labelling the revelation as ‘horrendous’ but ‘sadly…not unique’. For his part, Findlay has insisted he will not be ‘cowed by bullies’, adding: ‘You can’t run away from this. You have to be defiant. Not in any reckless, foolish way, but they don’t respect weakness.’ Strong stuff.
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