Amid rising extremism, Scottish Conservatives are offering serious policies that should be part of a civilised, democratic debate – Murdo Fraser

Fixing the NHS, schools, roads and Police Scotland and cutting taxes to stimulate growth are policies that would benefit everyone in the country

We live in a time when it feels that the pendulum has swung towards extremism on all sides. Social media is too often a weapon of hate rather than a means of self-expression. More and more, exercising the right to peaceful protest is anything but peaceful.

The electoral tactics of George Galloway have rightly been roundly condemned, but it still did not stop him from getting elected. And sometimes the words of condemnation of the extreme nature of our politics have more than a little dash of hypocrisy about them.

Our own First Minister, Humza Yousaf, may have championed a ‘hate crime’ bill but his most salient rallying cry to his faithful is to call for the eradication of his main political opponents in the Scottish Parliament. To wipe us out. The targets of his bile – we Scottish Conservatives and Unionists – held our conference in Aberdeen last weekend in fine fettle, looking forward to the next election, confident we can more than hold onto what we have, but also in the belief that we can make significant gains.

Scottish Conservative leader Douglas Ross speaks with Rishi Sunak during the party's recent conference in Aberdeen (Picture: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images)

And while the record of failure of our First Minister can provoke some irascible language at times, the basis of our attack on his administration and our campaign to increase our numbers will be on policy, as party leader Douglas Ross outlined in his keynote speech. Within it was not just a critique of this SNP administration but a prioritised prescription for what most urgently needs to be done to try to repair some of the damage they have done by deliberate acts and, just as often, by their inertia.

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We will proudly campaign on five key pledges that would benefit all of Scotland, but which show how the SNP has become a Central Belt administration ignoring large parts of our nation. That is seen graphically when it comes to the state of our roads.

Upgrading roads and tackling potholes

Election after election the SNP has pledged to dual Scotland’s most dangerous road – the A9. More than 100 people have been killed simply trying to make their way along it since 2009. Even the spinners of the SNP had to admit last year that they are a decade behind schedule in their promises to make the A9 safer.

Upgrading our road network is a matter of safety and social justice as well as economic prosperity, and so we will pledge to upgrade not just the A9 but also the A96, A83, A75, A77 and others, and will give local authorities the funds they need to deal with the scourge of potholes.

It is not just our national infrastructure that has fallen behind, so too have our public services. In health, all NHS building upgrades have been put back by at least two years. In just over a decade, almost 90 NHS facilities have been closed completely, many in rural areas. They say all politics is local, and all health care starts with a local surgery. To keep them open, we will pledge to recruit more than 1,000 general practitioners with a promise that no patient should have to wait more than a week for an appointment.

The local doctor used to be a Scottish icon and so, too, did the school teacher, but our once world-class education system is now failing. In maths and science, we are behind countries like Latvia and Slovenia and, for the first time in my lifetime, standards of reading are higher in England. It will take time, effort and commitment to restore our educational standards but we will start by reducing class sizes, reinforcing discipline within the classroom and returning to our traditional exam system.

Rapists escaping prison sentences

As standards in our schools have fallen on the SNP’s watch, crime has risen to its highest level since 2018. Violent crime is higher now than it has been for a decade. And yet, in the face of that, the SNP administration has closed 140 police stations and cut the number of police officers by more than 1,000.

Those criminals who are caught and convicted have the prospect of a shorter prison sentence if they are imprisoned at all. Rapists under the age of 25 are not automatically jailed. That has to change. We propose to introduce a victim’s law to put justice on the side of the victim, not the criminal, with the Sentencing Council including greater representation from them, and to restore police numbers by recruiting more than 1,000 new officers.

To pay for better public services, we need to grow the economy to create wealth. High taxes are a barrier to growth and, with Scotland being the highest taxed part of the UK, our sluggish growth rate is behind the national average. So, the Scottish Conservatives will be the only party at Holyrood to break the consensus and pledge to cut taxes, allowing families facing cost-of-living pressures to keep more of their own hard-earned cash, and rewarding entrepreneurs.

Avoiding the road to ruin

These are more than slogans or soundbites. These are policies founded on a philosophy of what will be best for our communities and our nation. And they should be a matter of civilised debate. When we look around and see the damage done by extremism, all of us who believe in peace and decency are appalled. But before we reach for the cliché to condemn, perhaps we should reflect that the conflicts we see often started with a refusal to have a civilised debate, to tolerate those with whom we disagree, and to have a proper dialogue.

And so I would hope that the First Minister and all my colleagues, from all parties at Holyrood, will be prepared to debate these ideas with respect. And not, however unintended, to take the first steps down a road which often leads to what we witness on our television screens almost every evening.

Murdo Fraser is a Scottish Conservative MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife