Russell Findlay and his dwindling band of Scottish Conservative MSPs could be heading for extinction, says Herald columnist Andy Maciver, a former communications chief for the party, and that may be no bad thing for centre-right liberalism

Who would be Russell Findlay? These are tough times for all of Scotland’s mainstream political leaders. The SNP’s John Swinney is valiantly trying to recover the sort of popular support required to deliver a Parliamentary majority, but is finding that the past is a high hurdle for voters to leap. Anas Sarwar of Labour has not put a foot wrong, but finds himself the victim of his own party at Westminster. Alex Cole Hamilton struggles to push his support high enough to make his party a factor after the election, and at the time of writing the Greens have no leader.

But compared to Russell Findlay, leader of the Scottish Tories, they are having a whale of a time. This week Mr Findlay lost his third MSP, as Graham Simpson joined Nigel Farage’s Reform UK. There was a sense of inevitability about this, and others may follow. Mr Simpson has decided that he has a better chance of pursuing his political ambitions in a political party which is on the up........

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