Douglas Ross will never be leader of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party

Very occasionally, I am amazed by my prescience. I closed yesterday's diary at 8th.decade.scot with an Alfred Tennyson quote; "Authority forgets a dying king".

And lo, the leaders of the Tory party, all that party's key decisions are made in London, decide to fire their lead spokesperson in our Parliament.

But if course Tennyson's saying did not really apply to Jackson Carlaw. Yesterday's events confirmed that he had no authority which could be forgotten.

Lest that be thought to be a "sour grapes" comment, let us examine the facts via the information published by the Electoral Commission. There is a party registered with the name "Conservative and Unionist Party" (vide http://search.electoralcommission.org.uk/api/pdf/Registrations/PP52). There is no party registered under any variant such as "Scottish Conservative ..".

The document of registration, giving its address as being at 4 Matthew Parker Street, London and its leader as Alexander Boris De Pfeffel Johnson, says that it fields candidates in England, Scotland, Wales and Europe. It is the Conservative and Unionist Party, based in London that fights elections in Scotland. No other entity.

To aid it in fighting elections it has registered three symbols, labeled; "Conservatives", "Scottish Conservatives", "Conservatives Ceidwadwyr".

Then it has nine descriptions registered with the Electoral Commission as being used by it. Registered in 2001 it has "Scottish Conservative and Unionist" and in 2017 "Scottish Conservative Candidate". These have been registered by a political party based in London.

In the current circumstances, it is interesting to look at the accounts for local Conservative Associations.

The candidate favoured by London to take over from Jackson Carlaw as leader of their Scottish members, but not (yet?) in our Parliament, is Douglas Ross. So let's look at his local party group.

The 2009 accounts describe them as "The Moray Conservative and Unionist Association". They then use that same name, again sans any reference to a Scottish Conservative party, in their accounts for 2010 and 2017. To the best of my knowledge, they remain called "The Moray Conservative and Unionist Association" today.

Conclusion? There is no Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party.

And therefore no such party for Douglas Ross, or anyone else, to lead.