Liz Truss's cabal of free-market pirates are not the competent, empathetic government we need – Susan Dalgety

It’s perhaps hard to imagine, but in 1997 there wasn’t a single Tory MP in Scotland. Tony Blair’s New Labour election landslide on May 1 that year was a disaster for the Scottish Conservatives.

Liz Truss and her Cabinet appear drunk on power and willing to gamble with the economic health of the country (Picture: Frank Augstein/pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Even a Tory moderate like Sir Malcolm Rifkind, who had represented Edinburgh Pentlands for nearly two decades, found himself helpless in the face of the Labour tsunami, as his once safe seat fell to Labour’s Dr Lynda Clark QC.

Sir Malcolm had to retreat to genteel Kensington and Chelsea, a far cry from Wester Hailes which he had once represented, to re-start his political career.

And if the Scotsman’s latest opinion poll holds true, then there is a new generation of Scottish Tory MPs facing annihilation at the next general election.

Both Scottish Labour and the SNP look set to benefit from the Conservatives’ slump, with Labour back up to 30 per cent, their highest standing with the voters for five years.

Edinburgh doesn’t have a Tory MP to lose. There hasn’t been one of those since Sir Malcolm handed in the key to his Colinton constituency office, but the Tories’ decline matters as much to the Capital as it does to Moray, where the current Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross is both MP and MSP.

It matters because the city’s future is tied to the future of our country, and the longer that stays in the hands of the Conservative Party, the worse it is for all of us.

This is not a party political broadcast on behalf of the Labour Party, this is a plea from a woman who has endured Thatcherism, several recessions and interest rates of 15 per cent.

Yet I cannot remember a time when people felt so afraid of what lies ahead, whether it is soaring energy bills and blackouts, or not being able to afford the weekly shop or monthly mortgage payments.

Liz Truss, the fourth Conservative Prime Minister in six years, is quick to lay the blame for the economic and social chaos on everything but her party.

To be fair, we are still suffering the legacy of the 2008 crash, Brexit, a global pandemic, and now the war in Ukraine. But the Conservative party has failed to govern with competence and integrity.

Instead, they have indulged in a real-life Game of Thrones, with fiercely ambitious – if not necessarily competent – politicians regularly tearing each other apart over the keys to Number 10.

We are now at the mercy of a cabal of free-market pirates, led by Liz Truss, who think all taxes are theft and whose main campaign message is survival of the fittest.

Britain, Scotland, Edinburgh, deserve better. We need a competent, empathetic government, not one drunk on power that carelessly bets the country’s future on volatile markets.

And we need economic and social stability, which we won’t get under the SNP’s plans to pull Scotland out of the UK. So that leaves us with Labour.

I have never been a huge fan of Keir Starmer. I find him wooden and uninspiring. His stance on women’s rights is suspect. And his managerial style can be off-putting.

But we don’t need heroes anymore. We need unshowy, efficient leadership. It’s time for Labour.