Red Card for Ross?
Amid the public outrage over “Party Gate”, the nation now wondering what days Downing Street wasn’t having boozy lockdown busting parties, Douglas Ross, leader of the Scottish Conservatives at Holyrood, found himself in a difficult position.
Would he sense the public mood and criticise his Westminster colleagues or would he obfuscate and try to implausibly suggest – as some Tory MPs have – that such “work events” were within the rules. Perhaps surprisingly, Ross went further than many expected and demanded Boris Johnson’s resignation after the Prime Minister admitted to parliament that he had indeed attended such events, leading to suggestions that he had also lied to the House of Commons when previously asked by opposition MPs.
While many would always question a politician’s motives for anything they do or say, this seemed a rare occasion of a politician being in touch with the public mood and demanding appropriate consequences for a man who never seems to suffer from them. This led to an extraordinary intervention by Jacob Rees-Mogg, Leader of the House of Commons, when being interviewed about the subject by Kirsty Wark on BBC Newsnight.
Rees-Mogg said “Douglas Ross has always been a quite lightweight figure” prompting a startled “Ooofff” from Wark, something more likely to be heard by Ross when impersonating Hans Moleman’s “Man Getting Hit by Football” on touchlines across Scotland, (where he moonlights as an SFA linesman) rather than the po-faced seriousness of a BBC current affairs program. Ross perhaps felt compelled to criticise the Prime Minister given his own involvement in a sleaze row which forced him to apologise for not declaring earnings of up to £6,700.
Rees-Mogg’s contempt for his ostensible colleague begs the question of why Ross and his fellow Scottish Conservatives (and Unionists more generally) are so passionately wedded to the idea of the United Kingdom, when it’s most powerful politicians – for better or worse – don’t even try to disguise their disdain for them. Supporters of Scottish independence might suggest that this is akin to a cultural Stockholm syndrome, where nationalism of the British sort trumps any rational argument.
That’s not to say that the Scottish variety can’t be equally as ridiculous at times; a common article of faith of some Scottish independence supporters is that Scotland is inhernently more progressive and tolerant than England (it’s always England) despite the existence of the ALBA Party, Scotland’s overwhelming whiteness, and ongoing struggle to accept its own historical wrongdoings.
Ross, wearing his MSP hat, was back hounding Nicola Sturgeon over Scotland’s more cautious easing of coronavirus restrictions in contrast to England, despite warnings from scientists to remain vigilant and pleas from the disabled, immunocompromised, and chronically ill about what a rapid return to relative normality would mean for them while cases of the Omicron variant remain high. Ross could be trying to reaffirm his clout with Conservatives south of the border given whispers of plots to oust him.
For now, the inertia over Party Gate rests upon the tediously repeated mantra of “wait for Sue Gray’s report,” amid suggestions that it will not be as transparent as it should be. If that’s the case, would Ross continue to call for a red card for Johnson as vociferously as he once did for Jozo Simunovic? Or might he back down and do the very on brand Scottish football thing of issuing only a caution for what should be the Prime Minister’s marching orders.