James Cleverly is an accomplished man. He is, outwardly, a good politician, and those who know him tell me he was a good minister, in charge of his brief, about which the same cannot be said for all the contenders for the leadership of the UK Conservative Party. Furthermore, I would not be at all surprised if he emerges from the pack as something of a unity contender, making it into the final two MPs who are put to the membership for election as leader.

However, during leadership elections in which the only constituency is the membership of the party, candidates make some terribly foolish contributions. And this week, Mr Cleverly dropped in a whopper, when he said that the Scottish Tory party can give the SNP and Labour “a trouncing” at the next Scottish Parliament elections, even going so far as to say that the party could return a majority of MSPs, a feat only achieved by Alex Salmond in 2011, and which requires a vote share approaching 50 per cent.

We should forgive Mr Cleverly. No politician should be judged by what they say during a party leadership election, where they are appealing to a particularly small and very unrepresentative cross-section of society. The 7,000 members of the Scottish Conservative party will have nodded their heads with vigour at Mr Cleverly’s Panglossian outlook.

The reality is harsh, though. In last month’s General Election, the party polled less than 13 per cent. It is highly likely to be in third place, behind two parties of the centre-left and with a vote share in the teens, in May 2026,........

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