An audience member had the best line during the Scottish leaders’ debate

Scottish Tory leader, Douglas Ross, has said he’ll resign after the 4 July election following criticism of his treatment of a rival Tory candidate and questions over his expenses. It is unusual, to say the least, for a party leader to announce their intention to step down during a general election campaign rather than after it. Even more singular for that leader to continue representing his party in leadership debates, as Ross did on the BBC last night.

With this in mind, the best question of the night came from the BBC presenter, Stephen Jardine, who asked Ross: ‘Why should anyone vote for a party you don’t even want to lead?’. The Tory leader replied that he was happy to spend more time with his children, and then seamlessly returned to his stump speech about this election being an opportunity for Scottish voters to concentrate on matters important to them, not the SNP’s ‘obsession with independence’. He went on to blame the nationalists for declining education standards and 800,000 Scots on NHS waiting lists. ‘I have constituents risking giving birth on the A9’, said Ross, providing the most disturbing image of the night.

Ross gave it his best shot, but this debate was an uphill struggle. The other six party leaders were determined to dump on ‘Tory austerity’ for every current and future social ill. They spent most of the evening vying with each other over who was best placed to ‘get rid of this rotten Tory government’ as the Scottish Labour leader intoned six times. 

‘In 23 days’ time the Tories could be gone’, Sarwar announced, in case anyone was had forgotten. To which the SNP leader, John Swinney, replied tartly: ‘But they’ll be replaced by an austerity-welding Labour government and £18 billion of public spending cuts according to the IFS’. Aye, ye canny trust the Red Tories as every nationalist knows. ‘Westminster holds Scotland’s purse strings’, Swinney went on, ‘and Labour are not being straight on spending’.

Sarwar was having none of that: ‘Read my lips’, he shouted, ‘no austerity under Labour!’. One red-shirted member of the audience did so and, visibly angry, asked why Sarwar was ‘lying to the public’. Labour would ‘continue the austerity of the Tories’, he asserted. 

Sarwar hit back that he was the only one ‘who’s made specific promises’: a genuine living wage, GB energy, a windfall tax on the oil and gas giants, closing the non-dom tax loophole. 

‘But what are you going to do to improve the situation in Gaza?’, asked Mr Red Shirt in one of the evening’s many non sequiturs. 

‘My views are known’, Sarwar cried over audience applause: a two state solution, immediate ceasefire and ‘Benjamin Netanyahu is committing war crimes’. Not sure that’s quite how Keir Starmer would put it. But for Anas Sarwar at least Gaza is clearly an issue in this election – though none of the other party leaders appeared to agree. 

The main issue of the night was undoubtedly spending and who was the real Tory in disguise. The Scottish Green co-leader, Lorna Slater, who was in government with the SNP until two months ago, revealed that the annual bloc grant from Westminster: ‘puts you in impossible positions…you have to cut and cut again..you have to do everything with this tiny packet of money’. Ross pointed out that it is currently the largest ever packet of money and that Scots get generous spending thanks to the Barnett formula. 

Taking a poke at Labour’s self-imposed tax-restraint, Swinney said that only the SNP had been prepared to increase taxes on the better off. Slater still wasn’t happy. It is ‘disingenius’ (sic), she said twice, to believe that the ‘super wealthy’ could not be hit with what she called ‘entrepreneurial taxes’ raising ‘billions and billions’ for baby boxes and free bus travel. Good luck with that in a country, Scotland, where only 30,000 earn enough to pay the 47p top rate of tax.

‘It’s all about mental health’, interjected the Scottish Lib Dem leader, Alex Cole-Hamilton, apropos of nothing. He called for a digital services tax to raise cash from the media giants who’re to blame for mental illness in the young. ‘Hope and change are only around the corner’, he added optimistically. ‘You just need to vote for it’.

As in the last Scottish leader’s debate, independence figured only tangentially in the exchanges. Sarwar was in conciliatory mood and appealed to independence supporters: ‘We may disagree on final destination but we all agree on getting rid of this ROTTEN TORY GOVERNMENT’. 

Swinney went lyrical and and said that breaking up the UK was ‘an exciting and beautiful proposition’. That elicited the best line of the night from another quick-witted audience member angry at the lack of dental services and the difficulty of getting GP appointments: ‘You need to tidy the flat before you move out, John’. The SNP leader had no answer to that. 

Join Fraser Nelson, Katy Balls and Kate Andrews for a post-election live recording of Coffee House Shots in Westminster, Thu 11 July. Bar opens 6.30pm, recording starts 7pm