Highland Conservative leader says it is time replace SNP who he says 'fiddled while Rome burns'
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Humza Yousaf may have narrowly beaten one Highland MSP to the top job but another remains to contend with – the Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross.
He made no secret of his ambition to replace the SNP in government, accusing the party of “fiddling while Rome burns. They have abdicated responsibility for governing our country in favour of again attempting to reboot their tired campaign for separation.”
Mr Ross put forward a number of policies that he felt would help deal with several major national issues, arguing that “Humza Yousaf cannot bring Scotland together” and that he will not deal with “the big challenges facing our economy, our public services and families up and down the country”.
“Over the last two years, my party has been building a positive programme focused on the real challenges Scotland faces,” he said.
“We have published a Right to Recovery Bill that will tackle Scotland’s drug deaths scandal and has now been endorsed by all sides in this chamber.
“We have set out plans for a Rural Development Bank, to invest in the infrastructure that rural communities and farming businesses need to thrive.
“We are bringing forward a Victims’ Law that would ensure that we place the justice system on the side of victims not criminals.
“We have set out plans for a rent-to-own model and tax cuts for first-time buyers that would ensure that home ownership in Scotland is not an unaffordable dream, but can become a reality.
“And we have plans to deliver a skills revolution by ensuring that every Scot has a Right to Retrain. Those are just some of the positive policies from the platform we have been building.”
He added: “Nationalists in this chamber will give Humza Yousaf a blank cheque to again push forward with his party’s independence obsession. But in the elections to come, Scotland can make the SNP pay the price for ignoring our real priorities.”
