Colin Mackay’s insight: Douglas Ross made Humza Yousaf and overthrew his own leadership

Douglas Ross was forced to resign from his position due to his own actions.

Humza Yousaf had to do more or less the same thing. He kicked the Greens out of government without considering the consequences; a key one of them resigned from the majority, which could have led to him losing the vote of confidence.

The Conservatives dismissed David Duguid and replaced him with Douglas Ross. Almost anyone who looked like Douglas Ross pinching the seat of a sick friend. It also meant he returned to his previous promise to Conservative MPs to leave Westminster and focus on leading the party at Holyrood.

Instead, he now intends to leave Holyrood and return to Westminster, although he has the financial security to remain in the Scottish Parliament if he loses next month.

Whatever happens, he will step down as leader of the Scottish Conservatives after the general election.

There is another reason behind this. The Sunday Mail ran a story about his expenses at Westminster, claiming he used them in connection with another job – as a linesman at football matches. Douglas Ross maintains he did nothing wrong and said he would welcome an assessment by the Independent Parliamentary Standards Authority; which is useful because IPSA has confirmed that it will do just that.

Even if, as he maintains, it turns out that Douglas Ross did nothing wrong, it is still a disturbing fact for him because the story was written by someone who worked for him.

Considering they had to be close to him, part of a fairly small team, he probably thinks he knows who it is and what else they might have access to. This could mean continued leakage of other potentially embarrassing information until Election Day and beyond.

All this led to the unprecedented announcement of his resignation as party leader in the middle of the election campaign.

Douglas Ross really did Humza, he overthrew his own leadership.