{"id":68936,"date":"2024-06-09T07:20:06","date_gmt":"2024-06-09T07:20:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/09\/tories-insist-ross-played-no-part-in-dropping-candidate-duguid\/"},"modified":"2024-06-09T07:20:06","modified_gmt":"2024-06-09T07:20:06","slug":"tories-insist-ross-played-no-part-in-dropping-candidate-duguid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/06\/09\/tories-insist-ross-played-no-part-in-dropping-candidate-duguid\/","title":{"rendered":"Tories insist Ross played no part in dropping candidate Duguid"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By\u00a0Jonathan Geddes,\u00a0<\/span>BBC Scotland News<\/span>\u00a0\u2022\u00a0<\/span>Georgia Roberts,\u00a0<\/span>BBC Scotland Westminster Correspondent<\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"PAPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n
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The Scottish Conservatives have insisted party leader Douglas Ross played no part in the decision to stop a general election candidate from standing.<\/p>\n

The party’s management board also ruled Mr Ross should contest the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat<\/a> on 4 July after David Duguid was effectively de-selected.<\/p>\n

Mr Duguid, who had held the Banff and Buchan seat since 2017, had already been adopted by local party members and has disputed suggestions that he is “seriously ill”. <\/p>\n

Party chairman Craig Hoy told BBC Scotland News that Mr Ross – who sits on the eight member board – did not take part in two meetings regarding Mr Duguid. <\/p>\n

Mr Hoy, who was campaigning in Glasgow, said: “We had two meetings of the board to discuss the situation with David\u2019s ill-health, but Douglas was present at neither of those meetings.”<\/p>\n

When asked if Mr Ross had recused himself from the meetings, Mr Hoy said the Highlands and Islands MSP had not been there and it was a “decision taken unanimously” by the management board.<\/p>\n

He added: “Douglas did not feed into these meetings. He did not feed into the decision. This was a very sensitive issue.”<\/p>\n

BBC Scotland News has been told Mr Ross has not attended any meetings of the board in 2024.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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David Duguid has said he would have been able to stand at the general election<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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Mr Duguid is in hospital after becoming ill in April but wrote in a social media post<\/a> that reports he could not stand in the election due to health problems were “simply incorrect”.<\/p>\n

The former Scotland Office minister added that no-one on the party management board had visited him in hospital.<\/p>\n

In a further update on Saturday<\/a> he revealed he had reached an “important milestone” and had been able to visit the hospital shops in his wheelchair to buy some newspapers.<\/p>\n

Mr Duguid added: “I was a bit surprised to see so many of them describe me as ‘seriously ill’.<\/p>\n

“That was true when I was in intensive care in ARI a month ago.<\/p>\n

“But certainly not now.<\/p>\n

“I continue to be fully focussed on my rehabilitation and making great progress daily.”<\/p>\n

He signed off by adding he had “more milestones planned for next week”.<\/p>\n

Mr Ross previously stated that he would be standing down as an MP at the election to focus on his duties at Holyrood, where he has been an MSP since 2021.<\/p>\n

Mr Hoy admitted it had been a “difficult few days” for the party, but said they did not have “sufficient assurance” that if Mr Duguid stood it would not work against “both his health and his recovery”.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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\"PAPA<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton said described Mr Duguid’s treatment as “desperately sad”<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/figure>\n
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The decision<\/a> means Mr Duguid is not eligible for a \u00a315,000 redundancy payment from Parliament.<\/p>\n

The move has been met with criticism from some within the party, with sources telling BBC Scotland News on Friday that “the optics are terrible” regarding the decision.<\/p>\n

But Mr Hoy said that Mr Ross should not consider standing down, as he was “leading the charge” for the party into the upcoming election.<\/p>\n

Other parties have used the deselection as ammunition to attack the Tories.<\/p>\n

Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said Mr Ross’ selection was “typical of his character and the character of the Conservative party”. <\/p>\n

Scottish Lib Dem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton described Mr Duguid’s treatment as “desperately sad”.<\/p>\n

He added: “If he genuinely didn’t want to stand down then this looks terrible for Douglas Ross.”<\/p>\n

On Friday Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes, an SNP MSP, criticised the move and said Mr Duguid had been “ejected from his seat” to allow Mr Ross to stand. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n


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14 hours ago By\u00a0Jonathan Geddes,\u00a0BBC Scotland News\u00a0\u2022\u00a0Georgia Roberts,\u00a0BBC Scotland Westminster Correspondent PA The Scottish Conservatives have insisted party leader Douglas Ross played no part in the decision to stop a general election candidate from standing. The party’s management board also ruled Mr Ross should contest the Aberdeenshire North and Moray East seat on 4 July […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/bbcx\/grey-placeholder.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[2309,14942,62818,64513,3651,3890,61145,3440],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68936"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68936"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68938,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68936\/revisions\/68938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}