Scottish Tories will elect new leader by end of September

[Nearly Sane]

The BBC enjoying the chance to make running puns about Brian Whittle.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cglkv48677xo

[Nearly Sane]

Major ructions about Douglas Ross and him conspiring to remain an MP and pass on the leadership.

https://uk.news.yahoo.com/douglas-ross-tried-quit-scottish-121120135.html

[Nearly Sane]

Meghan Gallacher resigns as Deputy Leader

[Nearly Sane]

A summary of the situation



https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crlrde3rx08o

[Gordon]

I'm loving the schadenfreude - can't see how Ross will survive until the 2026 Holyrood elections: his goose appears to have been cooked, to the point of being overdone.

[Nearly Sane]

Result today after a messy campaign

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cew1d8rw9zyo

[ProfessorDavey]

Result today after a messy campaign

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cew1d8rw9zyo

This has had absolutely zero coverage south of the border. And that isn't just anti-Scottish bias, as there was decent coverage of the Scottish Labour leader election a while back, and similarly for Plaid in Wales and DUP in NI.

Suggests just how rapidly irrelevant the tories are becoming, particularly north of the border.

Will be interesting to see whether the tory conference next week, with its beauty parade of leadership candidates will get wall to wall coverage, or relegated to 'and in other news' on the major news channels.

[Nearly Sane]

Easy victory for Russell Findlay, the 'establishment' candidate. Think that's a mistake though not sure it makes much difference

[ProfessorDavey]

Easy victory for Russell Findlay, the 'establishment' candidate. Think that's a mistake though not sure it makes much difference

Never heard of him. Now you might say that's my bad ... but the point is that none of these candidates has any name recognition outside of Scotland (and that includes politically pretty clued-in folk like me). Suspect the same will be the case for the majority (who aren't very interested in politics) in Scotland.

But the other thing which is pretty astonishing is the tiny number of the electorate - just £6k, and the votes for the winner - less than £3k. The winning candidate in my district council local ward elections gets more votes than that!!

[Nearly Sane]

Never heard of him. Now you might say that's my bad ... but the point is that none of these candidates has any name recognition outside of Scotland (and that includes politically pretty clued-in folk like me). Suspect the same will be the case for the majority (who aren't very interested in politics) in Scotland.

But the other thing which is pretty astonishing is the tiny number of the electorate - just £6k, and the votes for the winner - less than £3k. The winning candidate in my district council local ward elections gets more votes than that!!

Even in Scotland, there would be little name recognition, other than for Murdo Fraser, simply because of his longevity as an MSP (always list), and occasional comments about Rangers 'the King's club'.


I'm worried that this makes it easy for Reform to become the right wing party in Scotland.

[ProfessorDavey]

Even in Scotland, there would be little name recognition, other than for Murdo Fraser, simply because of his longevity as an MSP (always list), and occasional comments about Rangers 'the King's club'.


I'm worried that this makes it easy for Reform to become the right wing party in Scotland.

I suspect that until the tories become relevant again at UK level (which seems unlikely to me give the paucity of talent in the final 4 for their leadership election) that it will be even more difficult for the Scottish tory sub-brand to gain traction.

This does leave a big space for Reform. Were I advising them (I'm not and don't want them to be successful) I think they need their own strong sub-brand - ReformScotland anyone! And also a big personality from Scotland to act as the figurehead north of the border to counter the notion that Reform are all about Farage and Farage is the epitome of Englishness.

[Nearly Sane]

I suspect that until the tories become relevant again at UK level (which seems unlikely to me give the paucity of talent in the final 4 for their leadership election) that it will be even more difficult for the Scottish tory sub-brand to gain traction.

This does leave a big space for Reform. Were I advising them (I'm not and don't want them to be successful) I think they need their own strong sub-brand - ReformScotland anyone! And also a big personality from Scotland to act as the figurehead north of the border to counter the notion that Reform are all about Farage and Farage is the epitome of Englishness.

There is already a Reform Scotland - though a bit different from what you are suggesting.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reform_Scotland


A lot of the candidates at the election  for Reform were paper candidates, the only politician from UKIP days that has any name recognition is David Coburn. Unfortunately a lot of that recognition is that he's an arse.

To an extent Farage's Englishness is less of a problem for a large set of the support that Reform will be looking for due to the 'Ulsterisation' of Scottish politics, which I fear is due to get worse.


https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Coburn_(politician)


When Murdo Fraser ran against Ruth Davidson for leader of the Tories in Scotland, he ran on a ticket of separating from the main party. I think they need to do that as the main party isn't good for them.

[Nearly Sane]

Reform in Scotland should go big on getting rid of Holyrood but increasing local devolution. The farming and fishery vote that goes to the Tories usually is there to be picked up, as is the energy vote in the North East despite Starmer's putting the hedge fund energy company there.

Given the voting system, they could end up the 3rd largest party, dependent on the events between then and now pisdibly the 2nd largest, and in a election where no party could form a functioning govt.