The Scottish Conservative leadership election is now Russell Findlay’s to lose. The West Scotland MSP has secured three big endorsements: former Scottish Secretaries Lord Forsyth and David Mundell, and shadow Scottish Secretary John Lamont. It means all five Scottish Tory MPs support his campaign, alongside 12 MSPs, two council leaders and leading party donors Alasdair Locke, Alan Massie and Robert Kilgour. Right-winger Forsyth has an op-ed in today’s Scottish Mail on Sunday hailing Findlay’s ‘courage, competence, conviction and compassion’ and predicting that his leadership would see the Tories shift focus to ‘the real day-to-day concerns of every voter’. Left-winger Mundell believes Findlay has ‘the life experience’ and skills to win back ex-Tories from both Labour and Reform.
As I’ve pointed out before, Findlay bears comparison with Ruth Davidson, another journalist-turned-politician who stood for the leadership on a blue-collar, even mildly populist, platform and triumphed over party grandee Murdo Fraser, Findlay’s main rival in this contest. It’s not surprising, then, that he is attracting the support of Forsyth, Mundell and Lamont, who backed Davidson in 2011.
There are differences with Davidson, though. Findlay is to her right; he would be the first Scottish Tory leader since David McLetchie to be right-wing in any meaningful sense. He is a law-and-order Tory, having previously been a crime reporter who took on Glasgow’s notorious underworld and earned himself a doorstep acid attack in response. He was an outspoken opponent of Nicola Sturgeon’s attempted gender reforms, which would have legally recognised as women those men who self-identify as female. Setting out his tax and spend philosophy at his campaign launch, he quoted Margaret Thatcher: ‘There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money.’ The Scottish Tories haven’t had a leader who speaks like that in a long time.
The contest ends this month, with party members receiving their ballots from Wednesday and voting concluding on September 26. Most Scottish Tories will be glad to see the back of what has been an unedifying display. Outgoing leader Douglas Ross has been accused of expressing a desire to have Findlay succeed him a year ago. Findlay says he was unaware of Ross’s views but his opponents have tried to make it the defining issue of the election, with deputy leader Meghan Gallacher resigning in protest and other rivals issuing a joint call for the ballot to be paused pending an investigation. Murdo Fraser used his launch to trot out various MSPs who were invited to the podium to air their grievances against the party and the departing leader. It was the Scottish Tories’ answer to Father Ted’s Golden Cleric award: ‘And now we move on to leadership styles.’
Fraser lost his 2011 leadership bid largely because members rejected his call to abolish the Scottish Tories and replace them with an outfit called the Caledonians, a fascinating proposal that had something to do with John Buchan and Bavaria but little to do with voters. He has tried to distance himself from that policy, while describing in vague terms a review that would be carried out into the Scottish party’s relationship with Westminster. If scrapping the party is what sunk him last time, the culprit this time is likely to be his pitch to internal malcontents. For while there are MSPs, councillors and bag-carriers who resent the current leadership for failing to appreciate their strategic insights and consult them more often, most party members have little time for the gripes of professional politicians whose chief priorities seem to be their own egos and ambitions. Members want another Davidson, someone who can take on the SNP and Labour and deliver electoral gains. (Davidson doubled their Holyrood seats, replaced Labour as the main opposition, and gave them their best Commons result since the early days of Maggie.) If the party gets a strong leader but MSPs spend more time griping on WhatsApp, that’s a trade off they’ll gladly take.
The winner will be revealed on September 27, and will immediately be put to work readying the party for what is expected to be a very difficult Holyrood election in 2026. But there will be opportunities to pick up votes from a disintegrating SNP coalition, and part of Russell Findlay’s message is that he is the man to pick them up. It’s a more credible-sounding pitch than either of his rivals have managed.
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