The problem with Douglas Ross is the same as the problem
with Rishi Sunak, both have too much ambition, but too little political instinct.
Ross blew up the Scottish Conservatives campaign by
deciding to replace the present Banff and Buchan MP David Duguid in the new
Aberdeenshire North and East Moray seat. Duguid has recently been ill with a
spinal condition.
Boundary changes mean that Ross’s own Westminster constituency
of Moray has become Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey. Perhaps Ross thought this
was less winnable than before, but the result of his actions is that the Scottish
Conservatives are likely now to win neither seat.
It might have been reasonable to point out to Duguid that
he was too ill to stand for Parliament. But Ross required Duguid’s cooperation
in this and the consent of the local party. He also required the general
agreement of other Conservative MPs, MSPs and supporters. His failure to obtain
these shows that he wasn’t leading anyone and so naturally it became untenable
for him to remain party leader in Scotland.
The failure is not merely one of leadership it is one
of judgement and instinct. How would it look to force an ill MP to resign when
that MP wanted to continue? It would look terrible.
If Duguid had been allowed to stand he may have gained
some sympathy from voters for his steadfastness in the face of illness and determination
to carry on with his job. Instead, Ross will now have no sympathy at all, and
the seat is liable to go to the SNP.
Ross is ambitious but is not obviously intelligent. If
he were he would not have made such a stupid judgement as he has just made. It’s
also entirely unclear what if anything Ross believes. We know that he supports
the UK, but what does he believe about anything else? Just the usual Scottish
Tory wet mush where we argue against Labour, the Lib Dems and the SNP but agree
with them on every substantial economic issue.
The difference between Rishi Sunak and Douglas Ross is
that Sunak is genuinely intelligent and talented. The similarity is that he too
lacks political instinct. This is not merely about his missing the photo opportunity
on D Day. Again, a reasonable case could in Sunak’s mind be made for going back
to Britain to conduct an interview. The problem like Ross is that Sunak failed
to have the instinct of what it would look like. One interview was not worth
the days of negative coverage. The problem is that despite his intelligence
Sunak just did not get this. That in the end is how history will judge him an
intelligent decent man who did not get it.
Again, the problem is that while Sunak clearly has
ambition enough to plot against Boris Johnson and then again against Liz Truss,
it is entirely unclear that his ambition was connected with any real political
beliefs. What does Rishi Sunak believe apart from the same centrist wet mush
that we are soon going to get from Labour? Nothing. This is why he is going to
lose.
There is an argument that elections are won from the
centre and sometimes this is true if one of the parties is viewed as extreme.
But the problem is that the political centre doesn’t achieve anything. It
neither gives you socialism nor does it give you free markets. All it gives you
is ever higher public spending, ever increasing debt and deficit, ever higher
taxes and a larger state.
If this is what Rishi Sunak, Douglas Ross and the limp
wet Scottish Tories want why don’t they join the Lib Dems or Labour. The result
would be the same.
Elections can be won from the mainstream right.
Margaret Thatcher won three of them and would have won a fourth if she had not
been kicked out by the Tory wets who could not quite forgive her victories.
Because of her genuine political beliefs and goals, she was able to transform
the British economy and reverse the decline that had set in since 1945.
If the Conservative Party in 2019 with a large majority
had set out with a similar goal to transform the British economy to lower taxes
and shrink the size of the state while doing everything in its power to keep legal
and illegal migration to around 100,000 per year it would not now be losing so
badly that it may almost cease to exist.
The pandemic was an unexpected event, but the
Conservatives responded to it with authoritarian socialism, giving free money
to those who did not work and forcing upon us the greatest loss of collective
liberty in our history. Worse this response far from saving lives cost more
than it saved. If you vote Conservative and get authoritarian socialism you may
as well vote Labour. This is what the country is now going to do.
The right has to stay mainstream, but it has to offer
a smaller state, lower taxes and prosperity with a straightforward long-term
plan like the one that Thatcher offered and a deal that says if you are law
abiding and work hard you will prosper, but we won’t reward idleness and criminality.
Voters will reject any sort of extremism either from
the left or the right, but capitalism is not extremism and reducing the size of
the state and reforming public services so that they are more cost effective and
efficient would benefit all of our lives. But none of these things were even
attempted by Ross or Sunak and neither even made the case for Conservatism.
Both Ross and Sunak have failed because of lack of
political instinct not merely in the short term by stupid misjudgements that
looked terrible, but more importantly because neither made the argument that
you should vote Conservative because capitalism works and will improve your
life whether you live in Scotland or anywhere else in Britain and that this
improvement can only be obtained by voting Conservative.
Only the right can offer a genuine alternative to the social
democracy and the managed decline that forms the consensus that unites Labour
with the Lib Dems and the Tory wets. The reason the Conservative Party is going
to be destroyed is that since 2019 it has not even made the argument for right
wing economics let alone done anything to transform the British economy.
What is the point of Ross and Sunak’s ambition if they
do nothing with it?
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