The Ruth Davidson era is over. It has been three years since the now Baroness Davidson stood down as leader of the Scottish Tories, but the last decade of opposition politics has belonged to her. It was Davidson who parlayed opposition to independence into tactical support for the Scottish Conservatives, convincing a section of older, blue-collar Labour voters to lend her their vote to stop the SNP. In doing so, she took the Tories from third to second place at Holyrood and, in 2017, to their biggest win in a general election since the days of Margaret Thatcher. What she failed to do was make the Scottish Tories a viable party of government (a tall order at the best of times) and now the gains she made look set to be reversed.
Two new polls appear to confirm a trend that has been in place for some time: the Tories are sliding back into third place. The latest ComRes poll puts them on 15 per cent in Westminster voting intentions, 15 points behind Labour, while a fresh YouGov poll makes for even grimmer reading: just 12 per cent intend to vote for them at the next general election. On these numbers, the Tories would face another 1997-style Scottish wipeout. Indeed, as far as I can tell, YouGov’s 12 per cent would represent the worst ever result for the party or any of its predecessors.
Six years as the principal opposition party and they have almost nothing to show for it
Horizons are scarcely brighter at Holyrood, where ComRes has the list vote — where the party sources 26 of its 31 seats — down to 19 per cent while YouGov places it at just 14 per cent. Not only would the Conservatives slump to third place in the Scottish Parliament, on the YouGov numbers they would be just two points ahead of the Greens, raising the spectre, on a particularly bad night, of fourth place.
Being Conservatives, the membership will blame the leader for these polls and, being Unionists, it will be the Scottish leader they blame. Douglas Ross has had a rotten run of luck (a politics-suspending pandemic, an unpopular Prime Minister in Boris Johnson, partygate, an even more unpopular Prime Minister in Liz Truss) but he has also been guilty of a number of unforced errors. He is acutely unpopular with the party’s grassroots, not least for demanding Johnson’s resignation over Downing Street parties then U-turning when the Ukraine war began and it seemed the PM was staying put. For the former, they regard him as a traitor (their word, not mine) and, for the latter, a shitebag (ditto). He is also seen as ineffectual in standing up to Nicola Sturgeon.
In a sense, this is unfair. Partygate put him in an impossible position. As I said at the time, it was another example of Boris doing wrong and someone else paying the price. But if taking a stand on his Prime Minister misleading parliament showed a bit of backbone, Ross’s political spine swiftly turned to jelly and the Ukraine U-turn, although at least partly sincere, marked him out as a flip-flopper. There have been rumblings about his leadership for a while now and these polls will only pump up the volume. Showing the part-time referee a red card would salve the frustrations of many a rank-and-file Scottish Tory but the uncomfortable truth is that the talent pool for replacing him is shallow. There are a couple of figures on the Holyrood Tory benches with ideas – and one or two who could lead the party competently – but there are no political stars. It turns out the only person who can be Ruth Davidson is Ruth Davidson.
There is still time before the next general election, and certainly before the next Scottish parliament poll in 2026, for the Tories’ fortunes to recover. However, that would likely require a change of leader, direction, policy and outcomes at Westminster rather than Holyrood. Ross can point to the decent showing he delivered in last year’s devolved elections as well as to the toxic nature of the UK Tory leadership election, which the Scottish party should not want to replicate. That is, of course, if he still wants the job. He’s under 40, has two young children, an alternative career, and is on a hiding to nothing in his current role. At some point, self-belief becomes self-delusion and party loyalty reaps nothing but personal indignity.
If the Conservative are indeed headed back to third place, it seems apposite to ask what they have achieved in second place. Have they made the SNP pay a political price for its policy failings or its many scandals? They have not. Have they set out their own distinctive policy platform on the economy, health and education? They have not. Have they learned the lessons of ‘devolve and forget’ and lobbied Whitehall for devolution reform? They have not.
Six years as the principal opposition party and they have almost nothing to show for it. Ruth Davidson is not immune from criticism on this front – she was leader for three of these six years – but the decline since her departure has been precipitous. She handed her party an opportunity to reshape the political landscape in Scotland. They blew it.
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