SO, farewell Ruth Davidson. You have been a worthy adversary. But in the end, you chose London. Worse, you chose the second biggest unelected chamber in the world.

That may earn brownie points in high falutin’ Westminster – where even Labour Party leaders can survive an un-brotherly knighthood – but not in rootsy Scotland. No matter. The deal is done, the ermine fitted and the most talked-about Scottish Tory leader in decades is offski.

The only question is whether Davidson’s foo foo dust can be engineered to fall on the broad shoulders of Oor Doug.

On current performance – with Boris Johnson mistakenly praising “Murray Ross” at PMQs yesterday – not a chance.

Not only is Douglas not the darling of the English Jet Set, the dairyman/ referee turned politician cuts quite a different figure to his Scottish predecessors as well. Stiff and unyielding in manner, Doug is no jocular Annabel Goldie.

Nor does the man fae Moray have the urban nous that (slightly) benefitted Edinburgh-based David McLetchie or Glasgow-based Jackson Carlaw. And unlike all of them, his first choice was London.

Indeed, as Ian Blackford pointed out yesterday, Ross is still hedging his bets by hanging onto the Westminster seat he won from former SNP Westminster leader Angus Robertson, whilst also topping the Conservatives’ regional Holyrood list for the Highlands and Islands. Not quite the swaggering act of a confident man.

Most importantly though, Ross is no Ruth Davidson – a “gay, working class, bull-riding, outspoken Scot” as the Telegraph thrilled to describe her back in 2017. And that really matters.

Just as Scots have got used to the high-quality leadership of Alex Salmond and then Nicola Sturgeon (no matter the rancour that surrounds them now), we’ve also got used to a quick-thinking, normal-sounding Tory female leader.

With Ruth’s “advancement” to the Lords, her tough but approachable schtick will soon be gone. So will part of Holyrood’s diverse leadership.

Time was, with Kezia Dugdale in charge of Labour, Holyrood’s party leaders were a veritable Rainbow Coalition, more openly gay than straight – an incredible and liberating development in Scotland’s story.

Now, with the addition of Douglas Ross and Anas Sarwar, the new line-up will look very different. Nothing wrong with men at the helm of course, and Mr Sarwar’s presence improves diversity in another important way. But as male Unionist leaders have already found, it can be hard to tackle the formidable but diminutive Ms Sturgeon without running the risk of looking aggressive.

The weary stereotype of the female political leader was either weak, emotional, hesitant, shrill and inexperienced – or Margaret Thatcher. No more.

The veteran Nicola Sturgeon has seen off more Unionist party leaders than Boris Johnson has committed breaches of the ministerial code. In the process, she – and her unofficial doppelganger Janey Godley – have become a kind of political default.

And though it slightly sticks in the craw to admit it, Nicola and Ruth Davidson have become a high-quality and well-matched pair of adversaries. Not Chuckle Sisters. But strong personalities whose quick-wittedness has always produced high-quality sparring. That was always a hard act to follow, as Jackson Carlaw soon discovered.

Now Douglas Ross will inherit both the “follow Ruth” problem and the male image problem.

Unfortunately, Ross has the look of Groundskeeper Willie, (minus the ginger locks) – stern, hard done-by and perpetually angry.

Without making a considerable effort to lighten up and contain any desk-thumping tendencies, Ross may come across as a strangely old-fashioned 38-year-old in contrast to the modern 50-something-year-old Nicola Sturgeon.

Of course, that must float some voters’ boats. But not as many, I suspect. And since the Tories are also the face of the Union, any hesitancy about Douglas Ross may weaken the No vote.

With Ruth still to the fore and Douglas confined to Zoom appearances with his Union Jack, the scale of this epic change facing Scottish Conservatism has not yet become apparent. But that will change dramatically next week when the first leaders’ debate takes place on BBC Scotland.

Independence supporters may feel they’ve moved from winter to summer in one week flat, as gut-rotting fear of losing the SNP leader has morphed rapidly into raised expectations of a full throttle performance by Nicola Sturgeon next Tuesday.

It will be a baptism of fire for the new recruits, Anas Sarwar and Douglas Ross, and an opportunity to see if rumours of a possible “indy super majority” coalition between the SNP and Greens hold water.

Of course, such a pact might not harm either party’s electoral chances. The SNP will win almost all their seats in the constituency section of the May 6 poll, while the Greens will probably only stand on the list.

Reaching out to the Greens may also give SNP voters the tacit suggestion that if they want to depart from the party’s “both votes SNP” stance, they’d be better to support the Greens than any of the other indy list parties that intend to stand candidates. You could say that for the SNP, such an outcome would kill several birds with one stone. Even if some SNP voters, unhappy with their own party’s stance on gender identity, will be reluctant to head towards the like-minded Greens.

But obviously, even if the faces are different, one policy focus will almost certainly remain the same: education. In her last FMQs question, Ruth went for it, in PMQs Boris mentioned it and later Douglas repeated it.

You can bet the Tories are majoring on the educational attainment gap because focus groups tell them it is an SNP achilles heel. And actually, it is. Not for any of the reasons the Tories so often rehearsed. But because education is so closely related to factors over which the Scottish Government has very little control: poverty, benefit levels and, essentially, the face of the welfare state.

Nicola Sturgeon has always hugged the whole problem of equal educational attainment to her government, despite research which reveals that the education gap mirrors the income and wealth gaps that have been created and exacerbated by Tory policy.

Now, of course, there is a decent argument to be had about whether Holyrood taxation should rise to pour more resources into everything surrounding education. I doubt that’s an idea Douglas Ross will favour, and if Anas Sarwar takes it on, he will open up the suggestion that total control over taxation would give Scotland even more skin in the game. But only if Nicola Sturgeon grasps the thistle and opens up the connections between domestic policy success and the greater control that comes with independence.

Whatever the standard of the new opposition, here’s hoping that will finally happen.