For the Tories, granting a privilege, monetary reward or other advantage for services rendered politically is commonplace. Most recently we have seen this extensively as part of the COVID “VIP Lane” abuse of vast amounts of public funds. But this nepotism has been around a long time – often at Scotland’s expense.

Take the case of Malcolm Offord. A merchant banker and private equity partner, he amassed significant riches in the City of London. Politically, he joined Tory leader Iain Duncan Smith’s right-wing think tank the “Centre for Social Justice”. As part of the Independence “No” campaign he was a director of “Vote No Borders”, from which he was forced to withdraw due to false advertising.

More recently Offord has lots of links with Reform Scotland, a pro-Union Edinburgh based think-tank.

In the 2021 Scottish Government elections he stood as a Tory list candidate and failed to be selected for a seat. However shortly afterwards he was made a life peer by PM Boris Johnson, and then immediately appointed to Government anyway in the role of “Under-Secretary of State for Scotland”. He has donated at least £150,000 to the Tory party and records his country of residence as England.