The National:

SCOTTISH Tory members want to bring back the death penalty, think concerns over climate change have been exaggerated and believe multiculturalism has damaged Britain.

Ruth Davidson often tries to portray her branch office as slightly less backwards than their counterparts south of the Border.

That doesn't hold up to much scrutiny, however, and a new poll of Conservative Party members suggests the opposite is true.

It found that Scottish Tories were considerably further right than the party as a whole.

READ MORE: Scottish Tories to make ‘pledge of loyalty’ to Boris Johnson

We say this with the heaviest of caveats, however. We're talking about a small subsample of a larger poll. Even with that disclaimer, we still thought it worth alerting our readers to the results.

The YouGov/ITN survey had a sample size of 892 Tory members, with a weighted sample of 66 in Scotland.

Scottish Tories were far more in favour of bringing back the death penalty than the British party. A majority of 32% said it should be allowed for certain crimes, compared to just 21% across the party as a whole.

They were also far, far more likely to say that "concerns about climate change have been exaggerated". In Scotland, 62% of Tories felt that way, in contrast with just 32% who disagreed. For the UK party as a whole, the same figures were 46% to 45%. London came closest to the Scottish view, and that was at a distance, with only 8% more saying concerns have been exaggerated than said they had not been. 

READ MORE: Scottish Tory in secret plot to fix Theresa May’s last PMQs

Scottish Tories were also far more opposed to schools being required to include information about LGBT relationships in their education.

While for Britain as a whole there were 3% more opposing such a requirement than saying it should happen, that figure for the Scottish Tories was 13%.

Now is a useful time to note that the poll was split up into Scotland, London, Rest of South, Midlands/Wales and North subsamples.

For all of the examples we've given so far, the Scottish Tories were the furthest right on the issues of all those groups.

They were broadly in line with the wider party in saying Islam is "a threat to the British way of life", with 33% more saying this was the case than Islam being generally compatible. That was only 1% below the Britain-wide figure.

And yet, despite holding all the above views, 4% fewer felt Donald Trump would be a good Prime Minister.

The same percentage of the British and Scottish party (54%) opposite the legalisation of cannabis.

On social security, 20% more Scottish Tories said most people on benefits could get a job if they tried hard enough than those who felt people on benefits would like to work if they could, but were unable to because of disability, circumstance or lack of opportunities. A caring bunch, as ever.

Still, at least on this one, the equivalent total for the party as a whole (24%) was slightly more shameful.

Again, subsamples of polls are unreliable, but do these figures come as such a shock?

Davidson's spin machine seems to be malfunctioning, and the truth about her party – and their contempt for Scottish democracy – is more and more apparent.