Douglas Ross has said the constant briefing against him by Conservative MSPs left him a “bit paranoid.”

The outgoing Scottish Tory leader also described some of his colleagues as “calculating bastards” and said there were people in the party who never wanted him in charge.

Speaking to the journalist Graham Spiers at an event at The Stand Comedy Club as part of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, the MSP also insisted his own conduct had been above board.

READ MORE:

There were calls for him to stand down as leader last week, after five of the six candidates in the race to replace him said they were shocked by reports that he had attempted to quit as leader more than a year ago and install Russell Findlay as his successor.

The Telegraph reported that in July 2023, the MSP told the party’s general election candidate for Moray West, Nairn and Strathspey that he wanted to replace her.

However, Kathleen Robertson, who is the leader of Moray council, rebuffed his request.

Insiders told the paper that at the meeting in Mr Ross’s house, he told the councillor “his heart was in Westminster, not Holyrood” and promised her she would be selected as the Tory candidate for the equivalent Scottish Parliament seat at the 2026 election.

Asked who would replace him, he said Mr Findlay.

Ms Robertson made the party chair, Craig Hoy, aware of the conversation at the start of the year.

Murdo Fraser, Jamie Greene, Liam Kerr and Brian Whittle signed a joint statement questioning the “transparency and fairness” of the process.

Meghan Gallacher quit as Mr Ross’s deputy saying she was “deeply troubled” by the allegation.

The paper's report has also led to more unease over Mr Ross’s bid to stand for Westminster in the new Aberdeenshire North and Moray East constituency.

He replaced the incumbent David Duguid as the candidate after the party’s ruling Management Board declared him too ill to stand.

Mr Duguid - who has been recovering from illness in Glasgow’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital Spinal Unit - has long insisted he was well enough to contest the election.

Mr Ross told the fringe audience that it was wrong to suggest his “heart wasn’t in Holyrood”.

He said: “I don’t think anyone can genuinely say my heart wasn’t in (Holyrood) when we were going to battle late at night over gender recognition.

“I worked as hard as I could and others will determine whether I was successful or not.”

However, he also confessed he had not “taken any decision” on whether to seek re-election to Holyrood as Highlands and Islands MSP in 2026.

He said he would likely have been ousted as Scottish Tory leader even if he did not stand for a Westminster seat.

“If I’d known I wasn’t going to win the seat (Aberdeenshire North and Moray East) then I wouldn’t have gone forward with that seat.

“Even if I hadn’t have gone for that seat as the candidate, I think would have been in the exact same situation.

“I would no longer have been an MP, I would still have been an MSP and we would still have had roughly the same vote share across the country; therefore there would have been calls – which I would have accepted – for me to stand down.

“So yes, there is personal and reputational damage, people speaking about me and making comments, some of which are legitimate, others I think are wrong.

“But I don’t think the final outcome would have been any different.”

He added: “I’ve known since I became leader that some people didn’t want me to become leader four years ago and throughout that time people have continued to hold that view, and for some that view will have strengthened.”

Asked if you have to be a “calculating bastard” to be the Scottish Tory leader, Mr Ross replied: “I was going to say some of the ones that won't be leader of the Scottish Tories are calculating bastards.

“But look, all politics is rough and tumble at times.

“You've got to be aware of what you're getting yourself into. And I think maybe even I was not quite as aware of the full intensity of being a party leader.”

Mr Ross said: “I've never tried to shy away from criticism. If people are unhappy, rightly or wrongly with what I've done, I'm never going to going to shy away from that.

“So I take praise and criticism, although it's normally more of the latter than anything else, in terms of understanding the feelings among the MSP group.

”Look, I had that discussion about potentially running for Westminster again, and that opportunity didn't arrive. Therefore, I continued as MSP and leader of the party, and during that period, I think we had some quite significant successes.”

He pointed to the Gender Recognition Reform Bill and the vote of no confidence in Humza Yousaf.

“I worked as hard as I could,” he said.

Mr Ross accepted that he had not been the best at managing the Tory group in Holyrood, saying there was some opposition to “hands off approach.”

“Some people wanted to have almost constant contact with the leader. We tried to do a bit more engagement.

“But, you know, apart from many other things that I've done wrong, probably my management of the group, because of the way I am personally, was not as good as it could have been.

“And that's why people who were then clearly unhappy, would go out and brief against me.”

The MSP said the briefing had made him “a bit paranoid about things.”

He said the small number of MSPs in Holyrood meant there was “not an awful lot a leader can do if people are briefing against them, and there's no way of proving it.”

“If I could have proved what I know happened, then people would have been sacked.”

Asked how he would rate his leadership out of ten, Mr Ross admitted he had not been successful, “because I tried to get elected, I was beaten.”

“So on a personal level, that's disappointing, and it's disappointing for the party,” he added.

Though the Scottish Tories won five seats at the last election, their vote halved, “It's better than it could have been, but we have a low vote share that we've got to build up on. So I don't know, giving figures marks out of 10, I'm not sure about that but there have been positives, but there have undoubtedly been negatives.”