THERE was something different about FMQs yesterday. Initially, I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. Everything was as it should be.
MSPs looked vaguely bored. Presiding Officer Ken Macintosh looked inexplicably cheerful and Christine Grahame was wearing a resplendent, glittering brooch depicting two lovers dancing.
Then the man of the moment got to his feet and it all became clear. It was Jackson Carlaw’s debut as Scottish Tory leader and he was GLOWING.
Buoyed from his emphatic win over rival Michelle Ballantyne, in which he secured a whopping 4917 votes – nearly as many as are cast in the bonny baby competition in the local paper – he was ready to roll up his sleeves and get stuck in.
He’s already been making his mark outside of the chamber. In his first week he made the canny political decision to label the 45% of voters who voted SNP in the recent General Election as being in a “faith-based cult”. Then, with his first shadow cabinet reshuffle, he managed to curate a cabinet so full of men it made the Freemasons look like a Women’s Institute gathering.
READ MORE: Jackson Carlaw sacks rival Michelle Ballantyne in cabinet reshuffle
He asked the First Minister about funding for Police Scotland, quoting concerns from the Scottish Police Federation and others that the funding allocation in the draft Budget was “wholly inadequate”.
“Why is the First Minister ignoring these warnings?” asked Jackson Carlaw.
In response, the First Minister said that the Scottish Government had committed an extra £42 million of additional funding in the draft Budget for the year ahead, which she said represented a 3.5% increase.
She pointed to the decade of Tory austerity that had impacted on Scotland’s Budget and invited Carlaw to bring forward “credible” proposals during the Budget process which she said her ministers would look at.
Then – plot twist incoming – Carlaw said he HAD ALREADY submitted proposals which had been directly communicated to the Finance Secretary, which raised the question: was it the proposal itself which was so easily forgotten or Jackson Carlaw, new Scottish Tory leader? Time will tell, I suppose.
Their exchanges ended the way they always do, full of fury and mutual dislike. Nicola Sturgeon said Carlaw had “an absolute cheek” to raise issues around public services when it is his party that has presided over a decade of austerity.
READ MORE: Nicola Sturgeon calls out Jackson Carlaw's 'poor' gender balance
Carlaw used his outside voice to boom across the chamber: “Either YOU increase police funding, or YOU are putting the public at risk!”
It was an energetic start from the new Scottish Tory leader, but he should be mindful of expending too much too soon. We’ve still some way to go until the 2021 Holyrood elections and if – as he claims – he is setting his sights on becoming the next First Minister, then he’ll need to pace himself.
After all, the recent leadership contest revealed that the Scottish Conservatives only have around 10,000 members across the country. When it’s time to start posting those “say No to indyref2” leaflets through letterboxes again, Carlaw and his modest gang are going have their work cut out.
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