Douglas Ross tells Tory conference: We're ready to 'challenge the SNP for the top'

The leader of the Scottish Conservatives has urged members and activists to step up and make the party not just a strong opposition but a real alternative to the SNP.

Addressing delegates at the party’s conference in Aberdeen today, Ross — who appeared to have recovered from an illness that meant he was unable to attend First Minister’s Questions on Thursday — said he is not interested in the Tories “staying as permanent runners-up”, and instead intends to “challenge the SNP for the top”.

“We must be bolder, we must go further, we must aim higher; it’s what Scotland expects from us now,” he said.

Though Ross made clear his ambition is for the Conservatives to win the next Holyrood election, he said that for now the focus is on "winning control of council buildings and town halls in every single part of our country” at the upcoming local authority elections.

To do that, he said, the party must put “local priorities first”.

“I was a councillor myself for 10 years — I know the positive change that you can deliver, helping people to deal with the everyday issues that matter to them,” he said.

Longer term, Ross said the Conservatives would be focusing on a number of policy areas that would “undo the damage of 15 years of nationalist government […] to move Scotland forward”.

As announced at the conference by the party’s education spokesman Oliver Mundell, one of the Tories’ main priorities will be to scrap the SNP government’s flagship education framework, the Curriculum for Excellence.

Though the curriculum was backed by all parties when it was first introduced, Mundell yesterday told delegates that it has “led to declining standards” and is “beyond saving”.

The party has called for a “national conversation” to design a replacement curriculum that would “favour a return to Scotland's traditional knowledge-based curriculum”.

In his speech Ross referenced his two young children, Alastair and James, and noted that “for their sake”, he wants to “restore [Scotland’s] world-class education system”.

Other areas of focus, he said, would be driving forward the party’s Right to Recovery Bill “to end the scandal of Scotland being Europe’s drug capital”, pushing the idea of a local care service “to ensure resources are used for the frontline”, and delivering a victim’s law “to put the justice system on the side of victims of crime and their families”.

Ross delivered his speech just days after colleague Jamie Greene had to stand in for him at Holyrood when an illness caused his throat to seize up.

While there was no indication that he was still unwell, Ross noted at the start of his speech that the applause as he made his entrance gave him time to ease his throat with “a wee drink of water”.

He also joked that if any part of the stage started to fall apart delegates were to let him know, in reference to a speech made by then Prime Minister Theresa May at the party’s 2017 conference. In addition to May losing her voice and being handed a cough sweet by then Chancellor Philip Hammond, on that occasion lettering on the stage backdrop started falling away, meaning a slogan that started out as ‘Building a country that works for everyone’ ended up as ‘Building a country that works or everyon’.

Yesterday Prime Minister Boris Johnson addressed the Scottish conference, telling delegates that now is not the time to contemplate another independence referendum.

Noting that he believes it is “blindingly obvious” that a vote should not take place, the prime minister said that “this is not the moment to be having another referendum".

"It is not the time for yet more delectable disputations about the constitution when our European continent is being ravaged by the most vicious war since 1945; when public services and the economy need to recover from the pandemic,” he added.

Earlier in the day a short, pre-recorded video of Rishi Sunak had also been played, with the chancellor saying he wants Scotland to “share in, to drive, and to lead” the UK Government’s levelling-up agenda.