It is now over a month since the Scottish Parliament election which brought a majority SNP Government and the resignations of three party leaders.  Willie Rennie has succeeded Tavish Scott for the Liberal Democrats (though with only 5 MSPs, there was a small pool of potential leaders and no stomach for a fight) but Iain Gray and Annabel Goldie remain in place as “lame duck” leaders until such time as reviews are completed and leadership elections are held.  I’m sure we’ll get to the Labour leadership contest in time, but I’m going to focus on the Conservative contest for the moment.

The first thing is, when will it be?  And the answer is… well, we don’t know.  If the party are happy to conduct it under the old rules (pre-Sanderson review – pdf here) then the election could go ahead at any point.  But should the party want to adopt the recommendations from the Sanderson review, it would have to wait until the review is okayed by its Scottish conference in September.  Assuming that goes okay, the leadership election would subsequently take about 6-8 weeks for nominations, postal ballots to be returned etc…  Thus Annabel Goldie resigned on 7 May 2011 and will likely remain leader until late October at the earliest.  That strikes me as a strange situation.

Nevertheless, let’s have a look at the likely candidates.

In May’s election, the Scottish Conservatives elected 15 MSPs.  Taking Annabel Goldie out of the equation (as she’s standing down) there are 14 potential replacements.  Of those, we can probably rule out Alex Fergusson, Jamie McGrigor, Nanette Milne and Mary Scanlon who are older than auntie Annabel, as well as former leader David McLetchie, Margaret Mitchell and John Scott who are just slightly younger.  Each of those noted are still able politicians, don’t get me wrong – I don’t want to be accused of ageism here – but I suspect that if Annabel Goldie is considering standing down, none of them would seriously consider stepping into her shoes.

So that reduces the field by seven.  Of those remaining, three (Gavin Brown, Ruth Davidson and John Lamont) are in their thirties, two are in their forties (Murdo Fraser and Alex Johnstone) and two are in their fifties (Jackson Carlaw and Liz Smith).  I haven’t heard anything suggesting Alex Johnstone or Liz Smith are considering bids for to be leader, while Gavin Brown is a talent, and I fully expect him to be leader of the Scottish Tories one day, I don’t think it will be this time around.  Indeed, he may well decide that the next leader will have to be the reformer, and the best time to be leader will be after them.  With that in mind, that leaves four candidates whom the media have mentioned in connection with the job:

Murdo Fraser – probably the front-runner at the moment, the Scottish Tories’s deputy leader is expected by most to step up to the top job after a 6 year apprenticeship.  At 45, he’s had the experience of being in the parliament for ten years already and is an able debater.

Jackson Carlaw – was being heavily touted pre-election but let a notional Tory majority of 3,500 in Eastwood fall to Labour’s Ken Macintosh.  Also carries past baggage as deputy chair of the party and some question marks with regards to his financial background.  Sources say he has been trawling for votes already though, so will be interesting to see how that pans out.  I think if he had won Eastwood he’d have had a better chance, but as it is I think he’s fallen back a little.

John Lamont – at thirty-five, he’d be young for the position, but he won a borders constituency seat in 2007 and now holds the biggest non-SNP majority at Holyrood.  He has a large following in the borders and – with Derek Brownlee out of the picture – would be the youthful face of the Scottish Tories.  I’m not sure how much the wider party would support him, but if he can get support from outwith his own backyard (which I understand is quite a large pool of support anyway) he might well be the candidate to beat.

Ruth Davidson – the Scottish Tories’ only new MSP and at thirty-two, their youngest.  But don’t let that fool you.  She’d be a dark horse, but if she decided to stand, it could blow the contest wide open.  She’d get plenty of support from the younger, more pragmatic generation of Tories in Scotland and would be a very different prospect to the other three.  A wild card, to be sure, but one that make the contest more exciting.

I think if we were considering MPs and MEPs as well (ED – it wouldn’t take that long, there are only 2 names in those categories…) Struan Stevenson would get a mention, but it’d be near impossible for him to lead the party from Brussels.  Which, for me, makes the contest between the aforementioned four.

If I was a betting man (which I am occasionally), I’d probably shun the short odds on Murdo Fraser and instead take the slightly less fancied John Lamont.  I mean, it’ll probably be Murdo… but I do have a sneaky feeling that John Lamont might just have the support.  But he’d also be pretty young to lead them.  Perhaps he’ll sit it out and wait for the next time as well.

What do we think?  Could Jackson Carlaw or Ruth Davidson beat either of them to it?  Or will it be a safe handover from Annabel to Murdo?