Douglas Ross’s first Holyrood election as Scottish Tory leader ended with the party losing two constituencies but its overall seat tally remaining at 31. The Moray MP was not a hit on the campaign trail. Robotic, shouty, angry — pick your well-worn adjective. He was eviscerated daily by a hostile press and any number of commentators lined up to say all manner of uncharitable things about him. I was one of them.
Yet the results are there for all to see. Ross lost the commentariat but won the voters. The electorate had better buck up its ideas sharpish.
So confident was I that Ross was going to fall flat on his coupon, I spoke to a number of his colleagues on Saturday afternoon to gauge whether they thought he should stay on (which, in fairness, is what I was going to argue). None pushed back against the premise that the party would lose seats, but all agreed that Ross shouldn’t go anywhere.
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