Wee Douglas Ross: The Mr Nobody of Politics

The leader of the Scottish Tories has resigned - but did anyone notice?

Ross raises the red card before sending himself off the pitch.

Why did the resignation of the Scottish Conservative leader, Douglas Ross, who always seems to have the prefix “wee” applied to his name, pass almost unnoticed outside Scotlandshire? I know you probably don’t care very much about his political welfare, not many people do. But this is the first time any political leader has chucked in the towel in the middle of a general election campaign. Yet it didn’t make the front pages of any of the UK papers. Extraordinary. Compare this with the international coverage of Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation last year: it was global news.

OK, Douglas Ross is not Nicola Sturgeon. He isn’t exactly a household name even in Scotland. He wasn’t First Minister, hasn’t been lionised by the metropolitan media and is frankly a bit of a nobody. His brief moment of UK celebrity was in 2020 when he resigned as a junior minister from Boris Johnson’s government in protest at Dominic Cummings’ trip to Barnard Castle during Covid.

Nevertheless, this is still a remarkable story for anyone interested in politics and the future of the United Kingdom. Coming immediately after Rishi Sunak’s D-Day debacle you might have thought it would have been written up as the last straw. ‘Even the leader of the Scottish Conservatives is giving up the ghost: will Sunak be next’ That seemed the obvious headline for the tale. But Ross’s departure passed almost unremarked amid the clamour of the Prime Minister’s increasingly desperate apologies.

Then, two nights after his announcement, there was Douglas Ross back on TV representing his party in the BBC’s seven-cornered Scottish leaders debate in Glasgow. Chutzpah? Or a staggering lack of self-awareness? The BBC presenter, Stephen Jardine, asked the inevitable question: ‘Why should anyone vote for a party you don’t even want to lead?’. Douglas muttered something about spending time with his kids and then attacked the SNP’s “obsession with independence”.

So what exactly had possessed Douglas Ross to commit political seppuku in the middle of a general election? There had of course been allegations in the Sunday Mail over the weekend that Conservative party officials covered up parliamentary expenses claims that Ross incurred travelling for his job as an assistant referee for the Scottish Football Association. It’s complicated but you can read the details here. It amounts to an allegation that he misused public funds.

Ross insists that he has only ever claimed expenses for his work as an MP and never for his third job as a linesman. (Confusingly, Ross is both and MP and an MSP, which is why he’s called “Three Jobs Ross” by opposition MSPs). He points out that the parliamentary authorities in Westminster had cleared his expenses. But as we know from the fate of the former Scottish Labour leader, Henry McLeish, that doesn’t stop questions being raised. McLeish resigned as First Minister in 2001 over the subletting of his constituency offices in the late 1990’s even though the parliamentary authorities, in his case the House of Commons Fees Office, had raised no objections to the arrangement.

Mr Ross may be wholly innocent of any irregularities in his expenses. But Scottish politicians are uniquely accident-prone. Everyone remembers how the former Tory leader, David McLetchie, resigned 20 years ago after being accused of using his parliamentary expenses to take taxis to the lawyer’s office where he worked part time. There may be no legitimate comparison between that affair and Ross’s expenses issue. But sensing blood, opposition MPs led by the SNP First Minister, John Swinney, have been quick to call for a full independent investigation of the Tory leader’s expenses.

Mr Ross’s announcement that he is to resign after the election was, if nothing else, an unfortunate, even reckless juxtaposition. You would’ve thought that someone in Conservative HQ might have advised hims that this really was not the moment to announce his resignation in the middle of a general election campaign. Is it wise, Douglas, to invite the media put two and two together? One wonders whether the crack team of election saboteurs, who’ve been wrecking Rishi Sunak’s campaign from within are also embedded in the Scottish Tories.

The ostensible reason why Ross decided to stand down from his leadership of the Scottish Tories is, he says, because it is no longer “feasible” for him to remain an MSP in Holyrood if he is elected as an MP for the new seat of Aberdeenshire North and Moray East. Yet, this is not a dual role he has had a problem with performing in the past. Ross has remained MP for Moray for the last three years since he was elected to Holyrood.

He is breaking no rules standing again for Westminster while remaining an MSP in Holyrood. But the manner in which Mr Ross appeared to elbow aside the sitting MP for the area, the former Tory minister, David Duguid, in order to stand in this newly redrawn constituency shocked and angered many in his own party. One told senior figure told the BBC that the move had gone down “like a bucket of cold sick”. Ross had told the media that Duguid was unfit to stand because he is recovering from a spinal injury. However, Mr Duguid later made clear on social media that he’d been ready and willing to stand, was fit for the fight and that he was most unhappy at being forcibly deselected.

Shame! Stitch-up! claimed the opposition. This outburst of concern for the shabby treatment of Mr Duguid wasn’t entirely in good faith. Labour and the SNP clearly saw a chance here to derail the Tory campaign in Scotland before it had properly begun. What they didn’t expect was that Ross would derail it himself.

Whether or not this was a a “stitch-up” it was certainly a screeching u-turn. Mr Ross had promised in 2021 that he would give up his seat in Westminster to concentrate on his leadership of the Conservatives in Holyrood. He never did. Now he is saying that if he is elected as an MP he will give up his seat as an MSP in Holyrood. However, if he loses in Aberdeenshire North, he will remain in Holyrood as an MSP. But not as leader of his party.

Confused? So are the voters. The optics are terrible. However you look at this, Douglas Ross comes out resembling a heartless carpetbagger.  He’s shamelessly hedging his bets and breaking his promise to his party and Scottish voters. This story may be difficult to explain, but the stink of self-interest is unmistakeable.

This extraordinary episode has had material consequences. The latest Scottish opinion poll suggests that the Tories are now in danger of losing, not only Aberdeenshire North, but all six seats they currently hold in Scotland. That would pitch Ross back into Holyrood under a rather large cloud: as a third time loser who looks only after himself and has ruined his party. It is the kind of behaviour that confirms people’s worst suspicions about Tory politicians.

If the Tories are wiped out in Scotland, it would not just mean the loss of a few more seats, but a development of constitutional significance. This is, or used to be, the leading unionist party in Scotland. Indeed, its proper name is ‘The Conservative and Unionist Party’, though the U-word tends to be dropped now. I suspect the Scottish National Party will start discreetly fishing for lost Tory votes, especially in the North East. There may now be no way back for the UK Tories in Scorland..

With the manifesto launches and other campaign news, the trials of Mr Nobody, has received little attention this week. But it is a morality tale for an amoral age. By placing his own interests ahead of his party, Douglas Ross may singlehandedly have destroyed it as a credible political force. If that isn’t political news I don’t know what is.