The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday August 07 2024 #ScottishTories

The Scotsman

Scotsman deputy editor Alan Young talks about Murdo Fraser running for the Scottish Tory leadership with political editor Alistair Grant

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Wednesday. I'm Alan Young, I'm

00:12Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined today by our Political Officer, Alistair Grant,

00:16to talk through one of the main headlines. Hi Alistair.

00:18Hello, how's it going?

00:20Good, let's have a look at the front page. We meet today with the follow-up from the

00:28Scottish exam results announced yesterday and the line which the opposition parties in particular

00:36picked up on was the widening attainment gap between the poorest and rich students. This

00:46is obviously a huge challenge for the government, which they have admitted, but overall the pass

00:52rates have also gone down, so not good news. We picture on the front Josh Kerr after that stunning

01:011,500 metres at the Olympics in Paris last night. He picked up silver at the last gasp to the gold

01:12medal and we also have an exclusive on the front page from Alistair which I'm going to speak to

01:18about Murdo Fraser, Scotsman columnist and Tory MSP has entered the leadership race. So Alistair,

01:28this is a big name to enter what is already a pretty crowded field.

01:35Yes, so Murdo Fraser becomes the sixth Tory MSP to throw his hat in the ring to announce their

01:41running to be the new Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross. The outgoing leader obviously

01:46announced his resignation halfway through the general election campaign, kind of through a

01:50grenade in his party's own general election campaign, but Murdo Fraser very much a party

01:55veteran. He's been an MSP since 2001, since almost the very beginning of devolution.

02:01He's someone who ran for the leadership before, people might remember, he ran against Ruth Davidson

02:06in 2011 and at that point he was putting forward a platform that would have involved a breakaway

02:13from the UK Tory party, the Scottish Tory splitting off the UK Tory party and forming a new

02:19centre-right party in Scotland. This time round he said he's changed his mind and he's not going

02:24to be doing that, he's not putting that forward as a plan. Instead he says there should be a kind

02:28of commission to look into party structures that would report back after the 2026 Holyrood election.

02:35So he's very much trying to put forward a platform of unity but also a platform that focuses on what

02:41he calls real change. So real change to party structures, real change to what he says was a

02:47culture in which a cabal around the Tory leader was making decisions without necessarily consulting

02:53the rest of the kind of shadow cabinet or the kind of wider Tory MSP group or indeed the members.

03:00He says that will end under his leadership, that it will be more collegiate, there'll be more of a

03:06being a leader as opposed to a ruler as he might put it. Also very much saying that

03:13the Tories have a chance going into the 2026 Holyrood election to put forward a platform of

03:17change. His argument is that it will be a change election, much like the general election we've

03:21just had. Obviously Labour will be putting forward their position of change, the SNP by that point

03:27will have been in power for almost two decades. But Murdo Fraser says what's the point in replacing

03:33what he calls one centre-left party with another. So the Scottish Tories could offer their centre-right

03:38perspective, what he would call a pro-business perspective, a pro-growth perspective. So he's

03:44very much trying to put forward a platform of change but unity at the same time. And obviously

03:50he's, as I say, the sixth MSP to enter this race. We've got Russell Findlay, a former journalist who

03:56is still probably seen as the favourite in some ways, although Murdo Fraser is a very big name

04:01to enter the contest at this stage. Jamie Greene, another one. Megan Gallachers entered it. Liam Kerr.

04:07It's a kind of crowded field but at the same time it's what a lot of people in the Tory

04:14MSP group, but certainly that I've been speaking to, wanted. They wanted a proper contest, a proper

04:19debate about the way forward. The Conservatives got, I think I'm right in saying, 12.7 percent

04:24of the vote at the general election in Scotland just there, although they managed to hang on to

04:30five seats in Scotland. It's the result that if replicated in the 2026

04:35holiday election we'd see them lose around half their MSPs, so it would be a disastrous result

04:40for them. So there's an acceptance that they need to change, they need to come up with a new strategy

04:45and a lot of people wanted a proper debate about the way forward as opposed to a coronation which

04:50would have seen Russell Findlay, who was the first person to put himself forward, simply become

04:55the leader by default. So a crowded field but a proper debate going forward.

05:01Murdo writes extensively for us in today's paper and it's online at scotsman.com.

05:08I was going to say he doesn't hold back in his analysis of what's gone wrong.

05:13No, he says that members have been badly let down, both by leaders north and south of the border,

05:17so let down by Boris Johnson over Partigate, let down by Liz Truss over the disastrous mini-budget,

05:23let down by Rishi Sunak over the D-Day row that obviously derailed part of the general election

05:28campaign, but also let down by Douglas Ross, the outgoing Scottish Tory leader, due to that

05:33decision he made to run in Aberdeenshire North and Moray East in the general election to announce

05:39his resignation as party leader halfway through that campaign. So Murdo Fraser very much saying

05:43the party's unhappy. I think the sentence is that this is a fractured party, something needs to

05:49change. He's not holding back about the troubles they face and part of making that clear and

05:56outlining exactly what the problems are is to try and address them and to then move on. So

06:00yeah, it's quite a punchy op-ed actually and I think people should read it. It's on the Scottish,

06:04sorry, it's on the Scotsman's website at the moment but also pick up a copy of today's paper

06:08and you can read it in full. Indeed and just remind us of the timetable for this election.

06:16Yeah, so I think nominations actually officially open tomorrow and they close on August 22nd. I'm

06:22just doing this off the top of my head and then I think the ballots will run obviously as members

06:27who get the vote until the 26th of September I think and then we'd have a leader announced at

06:33the end, you know, the day after that. So we're looking at a new leader being in place at the end

06:37of September, which also people should bear in mind is just before the UK Tory leadership election

06:44results. So this will be a new leader coming into place in Scotland before we know who the UK leader

06:50of the Tories is and that's important because it feeds into some of this debate, you know,

06:54Murdo Fraser saying today they need to have their own Scottish identity. When I spoke to him

06:58yesterday he accepted that, you know, if a new Tory leader came in down south that was taking

07:04the party further to the right, if there was, I think he called it, a lurch to the right down

07:08south, that would be a source of concern for him and there is a concern in the Scottish Tory party

07:13about any move down south to try and, you know, appeal to those reform UK voters by taking the

07:18party further to the right. That would not go down well in Scotland and it would cause problems

07:23for the Scottish Conservative Party. So that's definitely something to look out for in the coming

07:27weeks and months as well. Indeed, interesting times ahead. Thanks very much for all that. Alistair,

07:32please keep an eye on scotsman.com throughout the day for all the very latest news and analysis. If

07:37you can do subscribe then you can read and watch everything that we do and, as Alistair says,

07:42please do pick up a copy of the paper from me and from Alistair. Bye for now.

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