DOUGLAS Ross soaked up the praise when he said Boris Johnson should resign over partygate back in January.
‘Look at us,’ he surely thought to himself. ‘We’re proving once and for all that the Scottish Tories don’t just do whatever our Westminster bosses tell us to.’
But when Johnson didn’t resign, Ross’s political position started to unravel. He went silent for a while, before eventually withdrawing his call for the PM to step down, saying the war in Ukraine was more important. He was branded “spineless” by all the other opposition parties, who were absolutely correct in their summation.
READ MORE: Douglas Ross 'destroys credibility' with car crash BBC Scotland interview
Now the Prime Minister has been found to have broken the Covid laws HE implemented, and paid a fine for doing so along with his Chancellor. It’s an unprecedented situation. But Ross continues to justify supporting Johnson (for now) by referring to the horrors in Ukraine. It’s not very classy, to say the least.
Presumably, Ross and his Scottish Tories don’t *actually* think it’s okay that Johnson broke his own laws. If they did, why did they say he should resign just a few weeks ago – before the Met had even started issuing their fixed-penalty notices?
Despite that, they can’t be seen to U-turn on the U-turn. That would be pure political clownery. So instead Ross will keep backing the Prime Minister’s law-breaking by conjuring up images of “shallow graves of innocent men, women and children” (his words).
What’s more than his own U-turn is the number of times Ross has used his position to call for the resignations of his political opponents. The following examples prove very difficult for the Scottish Tory leader.
The Nicola Sturgeon tweet
Douglas Ross was very quick to call for Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation last year during the Holyrood inquiry into the Scottish Government’s investigation of alleged sexual harassment by Alex Salmond.
He said there was “absolutely no way” that the First Minister could continue in her job if she was found to have broken the ministerial code.
When a leaked committee report stopped short of saying Sturgeon “knowingly” breached the rules, he said she had to resign.
“Evidence against Nicola Sturgeon has been mounting, it has been growing… you cannot continue as First Minister of Scotland if you have mislead parliament and breached the ministerial code,” he told the BBC.
Now Johnson faces accusations that he has misled parliament, as he told the Commons “all guidance was followed” during Downing Street gatherings. The fines handed out say otherwise.
But that doesn’t matter to Ross on this occasion.
He’s now being haunted by a tweet he made about the Sturgeon situation. “Lying to Parliament and breaching the Ministerial Code is a straight red, even in the most lenient referee’s book.”
Bet he wishes he never tweeted that now.
Douglas Ross's Dominic Cummings intervention
Last year, prior to becoming Scottish Tory leader, Ross was a junior minister in the Scotland Office. He became the first member of government to resign over the Cummings Barnard Castle scandal.
After public outrage grew as Cummings drove to Durham during the coronavirus lockdown, Ross stepped down and said he couldn’t tell his constituents “they were all wrong and one senior adviser to the Government was right”.
Since Ross took such decisive action over that coronavirus guideline breaching scandal, will he be resigning from his current position over Johnson? We very much doubt it. We also wonder if he will be happy to tell his angry constituents that they are all wrong and Johnson is right this time.
The Nicola Sturgeon mask incident
In December 2020, the First Minister apologised after being photographed at a pub following a funeral without wearing a mask.
Nicola Sturgeon said while attending the wake she “briefly” took her mask off, and admitted her mistake. “I’m kicking myself, and I’m sorry,” she told the Scottish Parliament.
But the Scottish Tories were absolutely furious over the incident.
“The First Minister should know better,” they said in a Twitter statement. “By forgetting the rules and failing to set a proper example, she’s undermining essential public health messaging.
“There cannot be one rule for Nicola Sturgeon and another for everyone else,” they wrote on Twitter.”
Fascinating to see such a strong reaction to briefly leaving a mask off ... seems there are very different standards for Number 10.
Attacks on SNP's 'soft-touch' approach to justice
Douglas Ross’s party has long positioned itself as one of law and order, often hitting out against the “SNP’s soft touch justice system”.
Nicola Sturgeon has argued against that characterisation, pointing out that Scotland now has some of its lowest crime rates on record.
Perhaps now she should take the time to remind Ross that he isn’t too concerned to have a law-breaker running the UK.
"Pitiful excuses"
Under pressure over the Ferguson Marine ferry deal, Sturgeon was recently quizzed on how the deal was signed off.
She insisted the deal was done “In line with procurement procedures with proper due diligence”, but asked if she gave the final green light said: “I didn’t say don’t go ahead.
"That isn’t to say that I was the minister taking the actual decision, but I am responsible for all of the decisions.”
The Scottish Tories – in a tweet reshared by Ross – accused the First Minister of making “pitiful excuses” and called her “embarrassing”.
If we’re talking “pitiful excuses”, how about one newspaper arguing that the birthday cake had been left in its Tupperware at the gathering as a reason not to push Johnson out? Or Michael Fabricant saying it wasn’t like there were pole dancers at these parties? Or Edwina Currie saying decent by-election results for the Tories down south meant Johnson was a great leader?
Ross seems more than happy for certain folks to run with pitiful excuses.
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It’s really not a good time for Douglas Ross. Even journalists sympathetic to his cause have pointed out that he looks silly. But the truth is, he can’t blame anyone but himself.
Despite all the insistence that he’d stand up to the Westminster Tories and speak for Scotland, he’s completely flopped. It’s getting quite hard to see how he makes it past the council elections, never mind the next General Election.
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