LIKE the messiah: always promised and never appearing. A section of the Scottish media is always waiting to be wooed by the pro-Union political centrist they can believe in again. Jim Murphy briefly wore the mantle – receiving a remarkably good press as the coming man and saviour of Scottish Labour – before being crucified by the electorate in the 2015 general election.
Kezia Dugdale never attracted the same veneration. It never occurred to anyone to put Willie Rennie on the same pedestal either. But after 2015, Ruth Davidson was quickly positioned as the next white hope receiving an almost universally friendly write-up – before Boris, and Brexit, and her own limitations as a political leader extinguished the dream. That all of these politicians failed to achieve their goals never seems to dampen the enthusiasm.