The Tories are stuck in the political mud, but Russell Findlay could just be the man to haul them right back out of it

This week Russell Findlay begins the work of making the Scottish Conservatives face up to the general election results.

They were truly dire. That the party managed to retain five of its six seats masked the catastrophic nature of its electoral implosion, but five numbers in particular lay the problem bare.

12.7 per cent: the Tories’ share of the vote across Scotland, the lowest in the party’s two-century history.

Forty five: number of seats where they failed to secure even 20 per cent of the vote.

Sixteen: number of seats where they lost their deposit.

Twenty five: number of seats where they finished behind Reform.

Ten: number of seats where they finished behind the Greens.

There is no sugar-coating numbers like these, and no one sensible would try. Russell Findlay certainly wouldn’t. As he told Tory conference yesterday: ‘We have to accept the enormity of the challenge ahead of us. We need to face some hard truths.’

Russell Findlay newly elected Scottish Tory leader is making no predictions about an election two years away

Hard truths like those election statistics, which read like the vitals of a political party on life support. In order to lead the Scottish Conservatives, Findlay must first secure the party’s survival at the next Holyrood elections.

Reckon I’m being overly dramatic? Since the general election, a number of MSPs have confessed their fears about 2026 to me. Not that the Conservatives could fall back into third place — that is largely factored in now — but that on an especially bad night the party might finish behind the Greens.

It couldn’t happen. Could it?

I make no predictions about an election two years away. The prescription in my crystal ball isn’t that strong. But if the Conservatives continue their slide and Reform builds on the seven per cent it managed in July, the Tories could find themselves relegated to the fringes of Holyrood.

This underscores the scale of the task that stands before Russell Findlay.

He has to coax back Tories who went to Reform but he will have to do so in a way that doesn’t alienate One Nationers, who have always been more prominent in the Scottish party’s support.

He has to make the Conservatives a viable alternative to the SNP but he will have to do so at an election where much of the anti-SNP sentiment and momentum will be with Labour.

He has, in short, to replicate what Ruth Davidson did for the party but he will have to do so without her secret weapon: independence.

That is rather a lot of doom and gloom, but there is time to turn things around. Party members have indicated emphatically that they want to see a turnaround, with 62 per cent giving their vote to Findlay, a more resounding victory than even his most ardent supporters expected. Findlay stood on a platform of change and the membership handed him a thumping great mandate. Change there must now be, and his authority, which flows from the membership, must be respected by everyone on the MSP benches.

But what does change look like?

In the first instance, it looks like Findlay himself. He is an oddity at Holyrood in that he’s not a career politician. Most of his professional life was spent as a journalist specialising in crime and investigations. He made a name for himself by digging into the dealings of Scotland’s criminal underworld, exposing the gangs and crimelords who had used fear to deter scrutiny of their illicit enterprises.

And so they sent a hitman after him. During Christmas 2015, an assailant appeared at the Findlay family’s front door, posing as a delivery man, and threw acid in his face before lunging at him with a knife. As Findlay fought off the attacker, his ten-year-old daughter ran to a neighbour for help.

The doctors saved his sight and the hitman was sentenced to ten years in prison, but the threat doesn’t go away. In July, in the middle of his leadership bid, two police detectives visited Findlay to warn him of a potential threat on his life. For the remainder of the campaign, the location of his speeches and other events was kept under wraps until the last minute for security reasons.

All this speaks to the man’s character. The fact he chose to go after the crime gangs in the first place. The fact he was undeterred by a savage attack on his doorstep. The fact he has chosen public service even as the threat of violence looms over him. You needn’t concur with Findlay’s politics to respect his pluck and grit.

This is more than just a colourful backstory. Having arrived in politics later than most and via a route other than the typical university-bag carrier-candidate path, Findlay is something of an outsider and that is reflected in his approach to Holyrood. He has no patience for its self-regard, for its insider priorities, for how hermetically sealed it is from the perspectives and preferences of the average Scot.

Nowhere was this more evident than in his stance on Nicola Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill. Findlay opposed the legislation on the grounds that its relaxed rules could be exploited by bad faith actors. He was a clarion voice against the Bill and made his case in clear, common sense terms, shorn of political jargon and poll-tested soundbites. If you go back and read his speeches from those debates, you hear something uncommon at Holyrood: an MSP speaking about policy in the same language and with the same instincts as the majority of Scots.

The leadership election revealed Findlay’s determination, earthy charm and a strong communications operation, which punched well above its modest size. It also brought forward a suite of policy proposals focussed on prosperity, housing, education and public safety. Since Baroness Davidson’s departure in 2019, the Scottish Conservative policy offering has been the thinnest of gruels.

The Tories have become as fixated on independence as the SNP, and while opposing the break up of the UK is a good and noble thing, it cannot be all the party has to say. Yet for some time now, opposition to independence has been the Tories’ primary brand, to the exclusion of all other issues. The voters were concerned about growth, tax, waiting times and the attainment gap, but all the Tories wanted to talk about was indyref2.

Findlay is on a mission to change that. He wants to make a comprehensive policy pitch to the general public, putting the Conservatives on their side in areas where the SNP and Labour are similarly minded. His outlook is firmly conservative, rooted in concepts like sound money, free enterprise, increased opportunity and law and order. If that sounds awfully familiar, I would merely note that his launch speech quoted Margaret Thatcher: ‘There is no such thing as public money; there is only taxpayers’ money.’

There is an electorate out there for mainstream, conservative policies and it will be Russell Findlay’s challenge to tap into it. Though the odds might appear stacked against him, he has something crucial going for him: opposition. Whatever happens at Holyrood or Westminster in the next two years cannot be blamed on the Tories. Findlay should use this opportunity to make his party the natural choice for anyone scunnered after two decades of the SNP but wholly unimpressed by Sir Keir Starmer’s already stumbling government. Scotland needs a new political direction and it falls to Russell Findlay to chart it.