Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross hits the self-destruct button

Ross previously quit Holyrood for Westminster in 2017 and now appears to be gambling all on retaining a Westminster seat.

Until this election he was MP for Moray, having ousted the SNP’s Westminster leader, Angus Robertson in 2017 and holding the seat in 2019.

Together with duties at Holyrood and as an accredited football linesman – he became known as “three jobs”.

In truth, Douglas Ross has always seemed more comfortable in the UK parliament where for a time he served as a Scotland office minister under Boris Johnson.

He quit the Johnson government over the prime minister’s refusal to sack the special adviser Dominic Cummings for his infamous Covid trip to Barnard Castle.

That seems like a lifetime ago.

He would later call on Boris Johnson to resign over his lack of candour about Covid parties in Downing Street.

That demand was temporarily withdrawn because of the outbreak of war in Ukraine.

He was teased by political opponents about his flip-flopping over his position on Johnson, just as they will tease him now for flip-flopping over which parliament he really wants to serve in.

The mess the Scottish Tories are in is a gift to their opponents.

It is a much weaker position than he might have imagined being in ahead of BBC Scotland’s leaders’ debate on Tuesday.

He is now the very temporary leader of the party from Scotland with the second largest number of seats at Westminster.

He has also given the party he most loves to hammer – the SNP – an unexpected gift.

All this distracts attention from the SNP’s own difficulties in a campaign where they are under huge pressure from a revived Labour party.