WELL, Mr Ross, you got off to a great start:
Gets appointed leader of Scottish Tories within minutes of Carlaw “resigning”.
Asks Ruth Davidson to stand in at FMQs – which she does lamentably.
Wednesday, August 5: Gives first interview as leader and states he “will be formidable opposition” to SNP next May.
Thursday, August 6: Realises major mistake when pointed out to him he had conceded he will lose the election next May.
READ MORE: Douglas Ross skips VJ Day memorial to referee a football match
Friday, August 7: Backtracks on previous interview and now states “he will win election” and will give up football refereeing if he becomes FM.
Saturday, August 8: States the Army should be brought into Aberdeen to help with the Covid outbreak – has to be told the Army have been in Aberdeen for months.
Sunday, August 9: It is revealed that a website DouglasRossforLeader.com was set up on Thursday, July 30 at 3.45pm but Carlaw gave his resignation after 5pm.
Monday, August 10: On Drivetime with John Beattie, Ross refuses to deny plotting with Ruth Davidson regarding the Carlaw resignation at a meeting with her in his home on Tuesday, July 28. Beattie’s response is: “Listeners can make up their own minds.”
READ MORE: Three other times Douglas Ross' refereeing landed him in hot water
On same programme Ross refuses to criticise Dominic Cummings, even though he resigned over his actions.
Asked about “invading migrants”, he stated there were serious problems when people crossing the Channel put their own lives and the lives of rescuers at risk. (Remember when asked a while back what would be the first thing he would do if he were PM and he stated he would do something about Gypsy travellers.)
About Ruth accepting a peerage, he said: “Scottish politicians in the Lords have a strong voice for Scotland.”
Friday, August 14: He tweets: “Happy 73rd Anniversary of Independence to Pakistan” – noting a strong friendship between Pakistan and Scotland.
READ MORE: Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross reveals his support for independence
So everyone else can be independent except the Scots – is he going to send congratulations to the at least other 61 countries that have gained independence from UK?
Why can’t Scotland be an independent country and have a “strong friendship” with the rest of the UK and indeed the world? Why not, Mr Ross?
Winifred McCartney
Paisley
MAY I propose that the newly elevated leader of the Scottish Conservatives be henceforth referred to as “Lino Ross”? This, for two reasons; one, it reflects one of his part-time jobs, and two, because when he does, finally, make an appearance at a Holyrood FMQs, Nicola is going to walk all over him!
Just a thought.
Ned Larkin
Inverness
I AM struggling to guess at what problems the Tories have identified for which they imagine that Ross and Davidson are the solution.
Andrew Grant
via email
THE letter from Lisa MacDonald displays a healthy scepticism towards PISA rankings as the ultimate arbiter of educational quality (Long Letter, August 15).
International comparative studies such as PISA, TIMMS and PIRLS were originally evidence-gathering exercises, vehicles for sharing knowledge about the principles and practice of education in differing countries and cultures. But now they have evolved into something much more, to the extent that two professors from the State University of New York have described how PISA has become “a new arbiter of global educational governance”.
READ MORE: Exams controversy has shone a light on assessment process
These three bodies carrying out their comparative studies now exert a considerable level of power over what happens in educational policy in many of the world’s most economically developed countries. Germany in 2001, and Japan a few years later, both abandoned or significantly adapted, programmes of educational reform on the basis of a fall in PISA rankings from their previous set of results.
In 2015, Nicky Morgan, the then English Education Secretary, made a pledge that England would reach the PISA top five by 2020. More evidence that governments are seeing a good survey ranking as an end in itself and a key policy goal.
Yet in 2013, a report in TES quoted a number of statistical and mathematical experts who said that PISA’s league tables were “useless”, produced rankings that were “meaningless” and were compiled using techniques that were “utterly wrong”. The OECD has admitted that “large variations in single country ranking positions are likely” because of the methods it used.
Typically, these caveats are never reported in the press and the rankings are assumed to be definitive judgements on the quality of educational systems.
Archie Love
Hamilton
HAVING listened to the vituperative tirades against John Swinney during the “debate” on the no-confidence motion last Thursday, it struck me that the Unionist parties are due a rebranding: “Batter Together”.
Mo Maclean
Glasgow
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