Andy Waddell writes that with Douglas Ross as the next leader of the Scottish Tories, the SNP don’t stand a chance
I have never under any leader felt more positive about our chances of winning the next Holyrood Election. Scottish Nationalists will call me deluded for that, but we have something they do not, we are going to have a leader who is relatable to everyday Scots. Douglas Ross is a political nuclear weapon that the party was right to pull at this time. The same way a nuclear weapon destroys existence, Douglas Ross can, and will destroy the Scottish National Party, stabilising this country financially and restoring the power to the people from a centralist Government in Edinburgh.
Living in South Lanarkshire, for me, Edinburgh often feels 550 miles away from home and London feels 30 miles away. Holyrood and the devolution settlement to this day has been a complete failure. Tony Blair destroyed our United Kingdom’s unity by handing the Scottish Nationalists a parliament to breed in. Instead of intervening and regulating the devolved government, all UK governments post-devolution have failed to see the division that many politicians sent to the devolved chambers were spreading. They have allowed voters to believe that a party with the word “national” in their name were the only ones who truly cared about Scotland and made Conservatives look like the imperial masters holding them in some kind of horrific jail cell, that drains Scotland of wealth and prosperity, when in reality it is the complete opposite.
I am proud of our United Kingdom in every single possible way. We live in the greatest country in the world, to destroy it would be cutting our nose off to spite our face. I am also proud of the part of the United Kingdom I come from, Scotland. But; we can do so much better than what we have politically.
Instead of looking forward to what positive and lifechanging policy the current SNP Government will release today, we have to endure yet another failure that the SNP choose to blame Westminster for, when often it is their own making. We can and must do better than this if we are to build the fairer and more equal society, the stronger economy and the best place to live in the United Kingdom that we all want for Scotland.
The Scottish Conservatives under the Leadership of Douglas Ross is the only party able to this. Douglas’s background, ethics, morals and vision for our country matters abundantly more to the voters I speak to on the doorsteps than putting our country through another decade of constitutional arguments and friction between our two governments. Douglas Ross can and will unite the unionist vote (Labour, Lib Dem and Conservative) to pull Nicola Sturgeon off her cloud.
That is why I have never been so upbeat about our Party’s prospects, we will have a leader with a clear vision, a young vision and a true desire to unite our people to stop the grievance and get on with governing Scotland. Douglas Ross is the man to send Nicola Sturgeon packing and that is why I unequivocally am backing him to lead my party and my country forward.
