From 30 years’ distance, I recall spending quite a bit of time at university riding around on Russell Findlay’s back. It only seemed fair – he was much taller than me, and had long legs that would take us from lecture to lecture faster than I could otherwise manage. Drink, on occasion, may have been taken.
We were both studying journalism. The besuited, short-back-and-sides, sombre Findlay who is today standing for the leadership of the Scottish Conservatives cut quite a different figure then. He arrived at campus on a motorbike, had hair down to his shoulders and wore a battered old leather jacket. He was handsome, cool and charismatic, and always had great-looking girlfriends: a leader of the pack.
We were good pals, part of a group that went on a few lads’ holidays together, where we were young and foolish.
None of us could have foreseen Russell getting involved in politics. I recall one trip to Ibiza where he spent the fortnight wandering around in Adidas Samba and with a Partick Thistle towel tied around his neck like a cape. He was middle class, from the not-so-badlands of Milngavie, with an accent to prove it, but was also hard as nails – some people are just like that. It wasn’t a huge surprise that he went on to pursue a career in crime journalism, exposing the violent drug gangs of Glasgow.
Findlay paid for his courage when one gangster, disguised as a postman, turned up at his door and hurled sulphuric acid in his face. I would have run or hidden or perhaps just fallen over. Russell knocked the guy’s teeth out and held him down until the police arrived.
Whether this counts for basic training in the drive-by world that is modern Tory politics, I’ll leave up to you. But that toughness has been evident in a different way since he was elected to Holyrood in 2021. It’s still not easy being a Conservative in Scotland, where the climate remains leftist and those on the right are often regarded not just as wrong, but as evil. It’s hardly a safe career move, either, given the variability of the party’s vote.
But still, Findlay had made a fine fist of things. He was quickly appointed justice spokesperson and has carved out a reputation for himself as a thoughtful and often surprising thinker. He’s not a lock ‘em up and throw away the key type – a lot of work has gone into policy around rehabilitation and tackling recidivism. When he’s on his feet in the chamber, he carries a natural weight and an easy authority.
Whether this qualifies him to lead his party, following the resignation of Douglas Ross, is a matter for the Tory membership. I hear that he is a popular figure among the grassroots, which I can understand. He is also the only MSP so far to have declared as a candidate. It’s widely expected that Megan Gallacher, the current deputy leader, will throw her hat into the ring, along with chairman Craig Hoy, the well-regarded business spokesperson Murdo Fraser, and backbenchers Jamie Green and Maurice Golden.
Whoever wins will, frankly, have a hell of a job on their hands. The Conservatives had a decent result in Scotland at the general election, bucking the national trend. Tactical anti-SNP voting ensured they won five of the 57 seats up for grabs, down just one on the previous election.
But the party dropped from a 25 per cent share of the vote in 2019 to just 12.7 per cent. And although the right-wing challenger party Reform failed to breakthrough north of the border, it still took 7 per cent of the total vote, only five points behind its more established rival. If the Farage vehicle can win around 6 per cent in any of the regions at the next Holyrood election, it would probably secure seats through the list system.
As it stands, much is out of the new Scottish Tory leader’s hands. The winner will be announced weeks before Rishi Sunak’s successor is declared at Westminster, which means the Scottish membership is in part voting blind. Will the UK party swing radically to the right or embrace the centre? The former would pose a significant challenge to the Scottish Conservatives, who have cleaved to a One Nation approach throughout the existence of the Scottish Parliament, and which under Ruth Davidson helped take them into second place behind the SNP and above Labour.
Who is the right person to navigate these choppy waters? What should the strategy be? How to draw the sting from Reform without alienating the centre-right? How to be heard as 2026 approaches, when all the noise will be around the battle between the Nats and Labour for first place? And given the Tories, as the hard and fast Unionist party, benefited electorally from the binary constitutional debate, how will the dropping salience of independence as an issue affect them?
The Holyrood election will doubtless provide its share of tactical voting, and perhaps the Tories will do ok given the expected swing against the SNP. They might even find themselves part of a Unionist coalition of sorts with Labour and the Lib Dems – certainly not an official part of government, but providing confidence and supply support in the event of a minority administration, which would give them some power. Anything, one suspects, to get the SNP out. But the polls currently suggest 2026 will prove challenging for them
There is talk, led by Murdo Fraser, that the time has come for a change in the relationship between the Conservatives at Westminster and Holyrood. Previously, Fraser had proposed the Scottish party separated from its UK sister, which didn’t prove popular with the mainly elderly membership. He has now suggested that it could be a distinct party when contesting Holyrood elections, but retain the link for Westminster ones. German models are mentioned. There is certainly merit in debating this – there will be much more merit in it if the UK party swings to the right.
It is all going to require a nimble touch and a smart strategy from whoever wins the leadership. The outgoing Ross never quite managed to convince in the role and there was constant grumbling from his MSPs about a lack of team spirit. The party has never quite recovered from the loss of Davidson, who had a rare human touch.
Perhaps Russell Findlay is the one – he is certainly referencing the revered Davidson regularly. He turned up to an event I hosted recently in Sambas (a different pair, I hope), jeans and a T-shirt, with a cagoule tied round his waist. It took me right back to when he used to cart me around. Are the Scottish Conservatives about to climb on?
[See also: Patriotic social democracy is powering Labour]
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