'Pure nostalgia' - Throwback pictures from the last time Ireland reached World Cup in 2002
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26 Mar 2026
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26 Mar 2026
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There is a “huge tranche” of small c conservative thinking in Scotland, Scottish Conservative leader Russell Findlay has said.
The Tory said he has been a “conservative small c, like most people, a lot of people in Scotland, all my days”.
Recent opinion polls suggest the Scottish Conservatives may fall to fourth place in the forthcoming Holyrood elections, behind the SNP, Labour and Reform UK.
Mr Findlay said the challenge will be to “turn that small c into a big C” at the ballot box in six weeks’ time.
Appearing on the BBC’s Scotcast podcast, Mr Findlay, a former investigative journalist, was asked when he first realised he was a Tory.
Interviewer Martin Geissler pointed out that there is no real mention of the Conservative Party in Mr Findlay’s 2018 book Acid Attack: A Journalist’s War With Organised Crime in which he describes suffering an acid attack on his doorstep.
Mr Findlay said: “As a journalist, going back to the organised crime groups, I would turn over a rogue politician of any party you know, whether that be Labour, SNP, Conservative – examples of that.
“But I was a conservative small c, like most people, a lot of people in Scotland, all my days.
“You know working in newspapers, it’s about fairness, it’s about justice, it’s about tuning in to what motivates your readers, the issues that they care about, and people care about fairness and justice. And I certainly did.”
He added: “I think there’s a huge tranche of conservative thinking in Scotland, small c conservative thinking.”
Asked how that will play out at the ballot box, Mr Findlay said: “Maybe we have to turn that small c into a big C.
“But if you look at people’s social attitudes in Scotland, they’re very similar to those from across the United Kingdom.
“I think people like tradition, I think people respect law and order.
“They want to see a good, solid education. They want to see classroom discipline.
“They want fairness.
“And I think, you know, our party represents those things.”
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