Scotland

Oh dear. Tory leadership candidate Tom Tugendhat has been rather excited about all the support he’s received from his counterparts north of the border. So far almost a third of the 31 Scottish Conservative MSPs have backed Tugendhat – and in his excitement to announce his latest supporters, the Tory contender’s team accidentally, um, fabricated one. Details, details… Tugendhat’s lot put out a press release this morning celebrating two of his newest endorsements, only it quickly transpired that one of the politicians in question didn’t actually exist. Alexander Brown is not actually a serving MSP – despite multiple references to the unknown politician. Halfway through the press release, however, Tugendhat’s

Back to Scotland, where the ongoing leadership contest for the next leader is heating up. Nominations for candidates close today, and any potential contender who hasn’t received the backing of 100 members won’t be able to progress to the next round. Frontrunner Russell Findlay hosted his official launch on Monday, and this morning his main rival Murdo Fraser is making his formal bid for the leadership. But in a rather interesting development, a number of MSPs who had initially thrown their hat into the ring have this week dropped out – and jumped ship to Fraser. And then there were three… On Tuesday, ex-Olympian athlete Brian Whittle announced he had

As the UK Tory leadership contest rumbles on, north of the border the Scottish race is hotting up. Last week saw a rather dramatic few days in which four of six contenders called for the competition to be paused and the party’s deputy leader quit her post after ‘disturbing claims’ about outgoing leader Douglas Ross emerged. It transpired that Ross attempted to shuffle out a prospective parliamentary candidate so that he could be selected to contest a Westminster seat in the 2024 election. The Telegraph report also claimed that the Scottish Tory leader wanted to ditch the top job over a year ago – and instead coronate current leadership candidate

Russell Findlay has launched his bid to be the next Scottish Tory leader as the party descends into a civil war over the propriety of the electoral process. The UK Conservative leadership race has thus far been a pretty staid affair. Not so the Scottish party, which is on the hunt for a new figurehead now that Douglas Ross is returning to the backbenches.  That’s not soon enough for some of his colleagues. He was already in the dog house after Aberdeenshire North and Moray East MP David Duguid was deselected by party HQ and his candidacy given to Ross. What’s worse, Duguid, a gentlemanly champion of oil workers and

All is not well in the Scottish Tory party. Now four of the six candidates have released a statement calling for the leadership race to be paused until they receive assurances on the contest’s ‘transparency and fairness’. The letter, signed by Murdo Fraser, Jamie Greene, Liam Kerr and Brian Whittle, is addressed to the party’s management board and comes in light of ‘disturbing claims’ about outgoing leader Douglas Ross. Oh dear… The Telegraph reported this morning that according to senior sources in the party, Ross wanted to ditch the leadership role over a year ago and coronate the current frontrunner Russell Findlay. Ross – who at the time was both

The Scottish nationalists are aggrieved. What’s new, I hear you ask. Well, a diplomatic row, one which has prompted some decidedly undiplomatic language. The Scottish establishment is worked up after it emerged that Angus Robertson, the Scottish government’s pretendy foreign secretary, met with Daniela Grudsky. Who’s she? Why, Israel’s deputy ambassador to the United Kingdom. Their confab took place on 8 August but word has only just got out.  The pair discussed fairly routine and low-level matters like cultural cooperation and renewables. To hear the howls from politicos and activists, you’d think Robertson leapt into a tank and rolled into Gaza. His colleagues have lined up to denounce the meeting, with one even

The Scottish government has today confirmed that it will follow Westminster’s decision to end the universal payment of winter fuel payments to pensioners. Instead, a Holyrood-run alternative will ensure that those elderly Scots most in need are still supported through means-testing. Social justice secretary Shirley-Anne Somerville insists she is unhappy about the decision, stating today that she had ‘no alternative but to replicate the decision’ after Chancellor Rachel Reeves announced cuts in England. Somerville claims that the Chancellor’s decision to end universal entitlement for winter fuel payments means a cut of almost 90 per cent of the funding for the Scottish benefit. This sounds bleak, doesn’t it? But the social justice secretary

Back to Scotland, where there appears to be trouble in Holyrood’s progressive paradise. The Scottish government’s Culture Secretary Angus Robertson has received strong backlash after appearing in a photo with Daniela Grudsky, the deputy ambassador of Israel to the UK. It transpires that the Scottish government minister met with Grudsky to discuss ‘culture, renewable energy and engaging with the country’s respective diasporas’. A Scottish government spokesperson added that the discussion ’emphasised the Scottish Government’s continued work with Police Scotland to protect Scotland’s faith communities and tackle all hate crimes, including antisemitism’. But Robertson’s meeting has ruffled feathers – particularly with the SNP’s former coalition partners. First slamming the party of