8.45am
The day started as any normal day at a conference does, being hounded by plain-clothes police officers driving about in a rented Arnold Clark minibus. It seems they weren’t expecting anyone arriving for the conference to be in a campervan. Maybe if I’d arrived in a black SUV they wouldn’t have had an issue.
9am
I quickly realised it wasn’t that the police hadn’t been expecting me, they hadn’t been expecting anyone. My first impression of the Tory conference was like a ghost town. The huge P&J Live conference space was deserted, except for a few police officers and stewards.
9.25am
A few older men have been trickling in slowly. Apart from one police officer I’m yet to see any women. There’s a For Women Scotland event about women’s rights later so I’m sure that will change though …
9.30am
Checked for info on the women’s rights event later. It’s being chaired by Murdo Fraser.
There’s just been a call for everyone to go to the main lobby for the party’s Annual General Meeting. It’s quiet.
10:30am
More people are filtering in ahead of the first really notable event of the day, Alister Jack’s address to the conference. I have not seen a woman yet (other than one on a pre-recorded video feed), but haven’t been in the main entrance so some may have snuck in.
10.45am
There’s an event on with four Tories speaking about how the UK is delivering for Scotland. They’re all men too. I’m wishing to see a woman now purely to end this particular line.
An excellent session with colleagues @murdo_fraser @sandesh4glasgow and @david_duguid, talking about the benefits of the union across Scotland. pic.twitter.com/zajmk8scZR
— Donald Cameron MSP (@DAJCameron) March 19, 2022
11.25am
Alister Jack’s onstage. A mention of Boris Johnson’s “powerful” speech the day before draws audible chuckles in the media room. Was probably a bit better than his though, which saw Jack accidentally claim the UK is “one of the biggest aid donors to Russia”.
11.40am
Like buses, two women have now walked onto the conference main stage at once. One is Ann Ross from Aberdeenshire Council, the other is Kathleen Robertson, who is running for a seat on Moray Council. It’s a “meet the candidates” session, for Tory delegates to meet the candidates they presumably already know.
12.05pm
It seems the floodgates have opened, and Meghan Gallacher MSP is now on stage.
To be fair, there has been a large female presence at the whole conference so far. The shadow of Nicola Sturgeon has hung over the entire day. It feels like her name has been mentioned more than anyone else’s, including in the brief puff video that preceded Douglas Ross’s speech.
12.10pm
Douglas Ross is on stage, the moment we’ve all been waiting for … hearing him say out loud what the Tories already told everyone he was going to say. He claims that there is a “silent majority” which could rediscover its voice to vote the SNP out of power. Whether this “silent majority” should carry more weight than the actual pro-independence one at Holyrood goes unaddressed.
The speech passed largely without incident. Ross’s teleprompter broke at one point, causing a line on the SNP’s “obsession with independence” to be relayed again and again. It’s still not clear if a broken teleprompter has been to blame for Ross’s standard preoccupation with the topic.
12.35pm
It’s over. A room full of relieved-looking delegates files out to the fringe events which, smartly, have all been planned to start at exactly the same time. Even smarter still, the Scottish Tories have scheduled for a press huddle with Douglas Ross to take part then as well. It’s almost as though they don’t want journalists covering everything that’s going on.
1pm
The press huddle goes as you’d expect, with Ross pointedly avoiding giving anything that could be considered a real answer to a question.
He is asked if he would campaign for Boris Johnson in the next General Election, amid reports he has refused to answer the question. This time, he also avoids answering the question, going on and on about the war in Ukraine.
Asked to “park the war” and answer the question at hand, Ross goes on another rant about how disrespectful the idea of parking the war is.
1.30pm
The huddle is over, and so is just about the whole conference. The Scottish Tory press officers have evaporated, perhaps off to fight fires set by Boris Johnson down in Blackpool.
The media room still has a few stragglers filing copy to their editors, but the number of suitcases on display suggests no-one is going to be hanging around for long ...
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