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Starting today, we will be featuring articles from each of the leadership candidates explaining why they should get your vote. We will also be posting an article from a supporter of each candidate. First up, is Jackson Carlaw:

At 52, I am still every bit as enthusiastic to win for our Party as I was as a Young Conservative leader a generation ago.

Policy and the Party

I am standing in this leadership election because I believe I can make the difference. This is an election to be Leader of the whole Scottish Party and not just of the MSPs at Holyrood. Arguably, the MSP group has proved to be part of the problem. In the wake of the 1997 rout it is easy to understand how the new MSP group filled a void. However, an unfortunate perception has grown ever since, that MSPs see themselves as the centre of the Scottish Conservative universe.

The facts hardly contradict. In the last four years the MSP group has met with Conservative Council Leaders twice, with Westminster candidates once, Holyrood candidates and constituency chairmen and activists not at all and participated in one, one day policy conference. This is not a recipe for success. But it has been the strategy of the current MSP leadership team. There has been no structured effort to galvanise or enthuse the different strands of the Party to function as a cohesive force, co-operating to develop election winning policies and to create an election winning organisation.

Our policy making has been bizarrely haphazard. There has been no permanent structure or process whatsoever. We react to others. From time to time an MSP has had a good idea and makes something of it. MSPs stick exclusively to their limited brief and are not invited to contribute beyond that. Others are rarely involved. Our links with business are pathetic and those with expertise in their respective fields are lacklustre. This has been the strategy of the current MSP leadership team.

Is it any wonder that we have made little electoral progress? Ivory tower policy announcements from Tory high command at Holyrood have not impressed the electorate or even our own candidates. So while the voters may have admired our Leader they have not voted Conservative because large tracts of our message sound irrelevant to them. This has been the strategy of the current MSP leadership team.

The experience I have gained, the working knowledge of the Party and the people in it after 30 years, will allow me as Leader to deliver a complete package of radical change in the ways in which we approach our business. In some respects that’s not terribly flashy but achieving that change will be truly radical. A party which functions effectively and speaks meaningfully to voters is surely the basis of our recovery. My experience is informed by an era when we were in government in Scotland. My leadership will be a bridge between that experience and the next generation of emerging Scottish Conservative talent. A leadership which will deliver change and prepare the way for new blood to have a credible prospect of contributing to government in Scotland.

I offer enthusiasm matched by a vision of an inclusive Party. A Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party with an ambition matched by an organisation capable of winning. A Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party advocating policies in which we all believe and which voters can support. Conservatives in Wales did it. Conservatives in England did it. And Conservatives in Scotland can do it too. A Scottish Party with a future. A Party with significant autonomy yet integrated into David Cameron’s UK Party. A Scotland with significant devolved responsibility yet an integral part of the United Kingdom.

A strong Scotland in a great Britain.