The new Scottish Tory leader wants a leaner government focused on value for money, but he faces an uphill task, writes TERRY MURDEN
How refreshing to hear a politician talk about living within our means without gloomy warnings of cuts and things getting worse. Russell Findlay, delivering his first set-piece speech as leader of the Scottish Tories spoke under the banner of ‘common sense for a change’ and he highlighted a number of issues that even die-hard Tory opponents would find difficult to challenge.
Mr Findlay’s message is spending cuts do not need to mean trimming service provision. Instead, it is about delivering services in a more efficient way. Getting more bang for the taxpayer’s buck. It means cutting out duplication and layers of consultation that often causes delay and adds to the cost of getting things done. Find me a taxpayer who would disagree.
It may have something to do with a career in journalism which, whatever others may think of it, works on the basis of getting the message over effectively and as quickly as possible. Processes that take months, involving mountains of paperwork and an army of staff can be turned into 20 paragraphs in a newspaper and sum up just about the everything that needs to be said.
I have to declare that Mr Findlay’s ‘just do it’ approach chimes with views I have expressed here and in columns for other publications. Doing more for less would be an alternative slogan, but for now he has adopted the ‘common sense’ message to ram home the difference between what he sees as the wacky, fringe issues that have occupied too much time and resource at Holyrood, and those things that affect and concern ordinary workers and families in their day-to-day lives.
His manifesto will be built on practical solutions, and all the better if there is a quick fix. He is the call centre operator who wants to sort out your problem while you wait, not refer you to someone in another department who asks the same questions and then says you’ll get an update within three weeks.
At last there is a senior voice in Holyrood who sees the nonsense of a well-remunerated individual being entitled to a free prescription for a pack of Paracetamol that would cost 39p at the chemist. I waited in a local pharmacy one day and within 20 minutes watched as a flow of customers came in and left, each one clutching a carrier bag of drugs. No wonder the NHS is struggling to keep up. And what is all this doing for Scotland’s drug dependency?
Asked about how this new approach to getting things done would extend to business and the economy, Mr Findlay indicated that the message is just the same. He has a dialogue with businesses who have expressed their frustration with higher taxes and regulation. He noted the Fraser of Allander Institute survey at the weekend showing the relationship between business and government has deteriorated. After the formation of the New Deal for Business committee and promise to put the economy first, something is clearly not working for John Swinney’s team, and Mr Findlay smells blood.
Of course, putting his plans into action would require the mother of all political comebacks. It is a long journey back, even to a level of respectability, for the Scottish Conservatives, and Mr Findlay hasn’t much time to make an impression before voters go to the polls in 2026. The forecasts are not good and he needs to put his own call for quick action into changing minds towards a party that is threatened with wipe-out. Mr Findlay is starting from a low bar and his best bet is to garner sufficient support so that the Tories might at least play a part in the horse-trading over what could be another minority government.
His best hope lies in maximising his alternative agenda against what he regards as the wasteful, inefficient and incompetent processes that pass for government at work. The 300 consultations that have been ordered in the short time since he became an MSP. An overly-complex income tax system that penalises higher earners against their counterparts in the rest of the UK. He could use it to embarrass those currently responsible for log-jams in the planning system and road building, reforming business rates and council tax, all of which suffer from promises of change that never happen.
He will also be crossing his fingers that the next leader at Westminster will not prove to be another Boris-style distraction. After embarrassingly backing Liz Truss, he has conspicuously chosen not to declare his support for either Kemi Badenoch or Robert Jenrick. Both have shown a tendency to grab headlines for the wrong reasons which makes it more important that the new Scottish leader ploughs his own furrow. To that extent he might draw inspiration from the record of one of his predecessors, Baroness Davidson. She rebuilt the party into the second largest at Holyrood and was even tipped as a future PM before deciding to quit front-line politics.
As a former crime journalist Mr Findlay is used to taking on the toughest of opponents and certainly won’t give his opponents an easy ride. He has won support from colleagues who became a little unnerved by Douglas Ross’s sneering and self-serving style of leadership and must now build a team that can unite around his new agenda.
However, with Reform threatening to carve out the right-wing of his party, and a leadership election that was not without its nasty moments, it’s those from within who may prove to be among his biggest challengers. While his ‘common sense’ strategy may differentiate his brand of Toryism from the ‘tax and cut’ parties of the left, he must find a way to let others in, including those waverers who are fatigued by the deep divisions in Scottish politics.
Terry Murden was Editor and Business Editor at The Sunday Times Scotland, Business Editor at The Scotsman, and Business and City Editor at Scotland on Sunday. He is now Editor of Daily Business.
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