Carlaw takes ‘Performance on the Podium’ plaudits at inaugural Leadership Hustings
Mark is an editor of Tory Hoose. He is the 2012 Council Candidate Drum Brae/Gyle ward, Edinburgh and was the 2011 Holyrood Candidate for Uddingston and Bellshill. Follow Mark on Twitter Read more from this authorAll roads lead to the idyllic setting of Kessock Bridge in the Highland Capital of Inverness on Saturday for the inaugural Scottish Conservatives Leadership Hustings.
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The four Leadership hopefuls of Jackson Carlaw, Ruth Davidson, Margaret Mitchell and Murdo Fraser were questioned by the 90 members in the Kessock Town Hall as they set out their stall for the first time in what is now the nitty-gritty business end of the Leadership race.
Following a great morning of debate during the Highland Conference and a terrific lunch laid on by the organisers, the Candidates drew lots under the watchful eye of Tory Hoose and Director of the Party in Scotland, Mark McInnes as to who would speak first.
The Hustings took a somewhat unusual format. One was expecting a Question Time style debate however the format was that of a Q&A session with the Candidates on an individual basis, with each allowed 7 minutes to deliver their vision as Leader if elected followed by questions from the floor.
Tory Hoose were Live Blogging from the event and you can re-live the debate here: http://www.toryhoose.com/2011/09/leadership-hustings-inverness-live-blog/
After the Candidates had endured their grilling, an exit poll of Scottish Conservative party members in attendance was conducted by Tory Hoose.
The poll asked 33 of the present 90 members at the hustings in Inverness who they would be supporting based solely on their ‘performance on
the podium’. Jackson Carlaw gained 57% of the votes with 19, with Ruth Davidson second on 9 votes and 27%.
The poll will be disappointing news for Murdo Fraser who picked up just 2 votes, behind Margaret Mitchell’s 3 votes, despite Mrs Mitchell only being in the contest for 72 hours.
So, a turn up perhaps for the books based on the exclusive Tory Hoose poll that closed on Friday, showing Murdo Fraser narrowly in the lead followed by Ruth. With the introduction of Margaret Mitchell at the 11th hour, an exciting Leadership Race just became a little bit more interesting….
The Candidates can bask in their glory or lick their wounds over the next week or so before they go head to head again at the National Party Conference in Manchester on Monday 3rd October. Tory Hoose will once again be there to cover all the action.
The winner will be announced on November 4th.
thanks for blogging the hustings. It gave a great feel for the event. Fascinating exit poll too – all to play for as they’d say!
from a Ruth supporter.
“The winner will be announced on November 4th.” and fireworks the next night to celebrate.
Aside from Murdo wanting to rehead the stationery is there anything that defines the difference between the other “nae change” candidates? There has been 14 years of decline, steady and constant. Does this not suggest there is something wrong? From a low of around 18% in 1997 (which at the time was meant to be worst result and was in the middle of a Labour landslide) to around 12% now is not a good result.