Scotland

‘Now is not the time,’ successive Tory prime ministers told Nicola Sturgeon following her persistent calls for another independence referendum. It’s simply too soon after the last one, they said. In August, the Scottish secretary, Alister Jack, caused fury in nationalist circles after he stated there would need to be at least 60 per cent support for independence in opinion polls before the UK government would respond to further Section 30 referendum requests. Strange, then, that this Tory message appears to be exactly what the SNP leadership candidates were parroting in Tuesday night’s now infamous STV debate.

The SNP leadership has turned into open civil war. Alex Salmond has shafted the frontrunner Humza Yousaf who tried to shaft Kate Forbes, who was, in turn, shafted by Nicola Sturgeon. No wonder long-suffering deputy First Minister, John Swinney, has resigned.  Swinney’s departure came on the day Salmond torpedoed Yousaf, Sturgeon’s chosen successor, by claiming he had skipped Holyrood's landmark gay marriage vote in 2014 due to 'religious pressure'. Yousaf says his ‘recollection is different’, but his position is now untenable. His account is contradicted by the minister who was in charge of the 2014 equal marriage vote, Alex Neil, and now the then first minister, Salmond.

Is Ash Regan the dark horse in the SNP leadership race? Kate Forbes and Humza Yousaf are the frontrunners, yet in a race full of surprises, Regan's chances should not be ruled out. The 48-year-old MSP for Edinburgh Eastern resigned in protest over gender self ID. Now she has returned as the candidate for change from the Nicola Sturgeon era – but might her ties to another former SNP leader, Alex Salmond, prove to be her undoing? Regan is clear about what went wrong for the SNP under its outgoing leader: ‘Kids in the playground can see that there have been some issues in the SNP of late,’ she says when I meet her at her campaign launch in North Queensferry in Fife. ‘Our movement has been divided for far too long by petty differences and personal agendas.

Bring back Nicola Sturgeon. The race to replace her as SNP leader and first minister has turned into the mother of all culture wars. Who would have thought that the party of independence would start tearing itself apart over a law on same sex marriage that was passed nearly a decade ago? The early front runner, Kate Forbes, provoked fury among ‘progressive’ SNP supporters on Twitter by saying she opposes gay marriage – something everyone who knows her knew perfectly well. She is an evangelical Christian for heaven’s sake, a member of the Free Church of Scotland. Of course she opposes gay marriage. That along with having children out of wedlock and working on the sabbath.

Whenever a governing party changes leader midway through a parliament, it’s interesting to note what the main opposition makes of the contest. Specifically, which candidate they would be more comfortable to see win — and which they dread the most.  So, as the SNP begins choosing Nicola Sturgeon’s replacement as party leader and first minister, I’ve been asking Scottish Tories what they think so far. Whomever the Scottish Nationalists pick will be staring down Douglas Ross every week at First Minister’s Questions, while the Scottish Tory leader will have to update his strategy and rhetoric for a post-Sturgeon era.  So far there are two declared candidates.

'Flower of Scotland' is the unofficial national anthem north of the border but soon enough we may never hear its like again. Jim Telfer, one of the country’s most celebrated rugby coaches, has called for the song to be dropped at sporting events in favour of an alternative that ‘shows us standing for something rather than against something as a country’. His plea has been echoed by former Scotland international Jim Aitken, who wrote to the Times dismissing the song as an ‘anti-English dirge’.  Telfer’s complaint prompted Lord McConnell, a former Labour first minister, to urge a more ‘positive’ musical number, while Scottish Tory MSP Murdo Fraser deemed the current tune too ‘jingoistic’.

The UK government’s threat to block Nicola Sturgeon’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill took many by surprise. The powers, under Section 35 of the Scotland Act, have never been used before. The assumption from some observers, this one included, was that this was a negotiating tactic ahead of inter-governmental discussions on the Bill’s implementation and cross-border issues that might arise. That assumption appears to be wrong. I understand that raising the spectre of Section 35 is not a negotiating tactic: ministers are seriously contemplating it and legal advice is being sought. Among ministers’ concerns are questions over passports, driving licences and public safety.

The Ruth Davidson era is over. It has been three years since the now Baroness Davidson stood down as leader of the Scottish Tories, but the last decade of opposition politics has belonged to her. It was Davidson who parlayed opposition to independence into tactical support for the Scottish Conservatives, convincing a section of older, blue-collar Labour voters to lend her their vote to stop the SNP. In doing so, she took the Tories from third to second place at Holyrood and, in 2017, to their biggest win in a general election since the days of Margaret Thatcher. What she failed to do was make the Scottish Tories a viable party of government (a tall order at the best of times) and now the gains she made look set to be reversed.

Elaine Miller is one of the grown-ups. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Society of Physiotherapy, with a specialism in pelvic health. She also jokes about it. Her comedy show, Viva Your Vulva: The Hole Story is currently playing at the Edinburgh Fringe. It's a good one: the production has won awards and a five-star review. Miller is forthright – her audiences are warned about ‘strong language and swearing’ – but her performance is more than mere entertainment. In Miller’s words, The aim of the show is that the audience leave knowing what a pelvic floor is, what it does and where to take theirs if they think it is a bit broken. It is evidence based, and so counts as CPD – possibly the funniest thing about it.

Judging by the show of hands in the auditorium of the Perth Concert Hall tonight, both Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak had a fair bit of work to do to win over Scottish Tories. Many put their hands up to say they hadn't yet decided who to back when asked by the host Colin Mackay. Mind you, many of them then went on to boo Mackay for asking questions of both candidates that they found annoying. Normally when an audience boos a journalist in Scotland, it's blamed on the SNP and that party's dislike of scrutiny. Tonight, though, it was the Conservative party.  Neither candidate has said that much about their plan for Scotland prior to today's hustings.