The last time Malcolm Offord spoke to The Herald was, as it happens, the last time Nigel Farage was in Scotland.

The then Tory peer was publicising his new paper, Wealthy Nation, Healthy Nations, something he described as a “wee pamphlet of essays” marking 25 years of devolution.

Just as the interview started, Tory MSP Graham Simpson defected.

While Lord Offord insisted on Saturday that the possibility of him following suit was nowhere near his mind at the time, looking back there were, perhaps, signs he was an unhappy Conservative.

The Tories had, he said, spent too much time "focused on the whole dealing with the independence question" and not enough time on policy.

He hoped his party would "come up with some alternative policies that actually talk about how we how we make Scotl

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