We long ago gave up expecting any sort of principled consistency from the Scottish Tories. Whether it was Ruth “line in the sand, no more powers” Davidson magically morphing into a champion of extended devolution, or suddenly reversing her position on free prescriptions, the party is now almost as fluid on policy as Scottish Labour.

The underlings, of course, dutifully follow their leader’s example. Readers familiar with Adam Tomkins’ remarkably rapid journey from fiery pro-independence republican to an ultra-Unionist ultra-Conservative monarchist will, we suspect, barely have batted an eyelid this morning as he unblinkingly performed a full 180-degree turn on the concept of universal basic income.

Even though as recently as this January he was full of admiration for it:

And he’s not alone.

Yesterday much opprobrium was directed at Moray MP Douglas Ross, who is ducking a key Westminster vote on the catastrophic Universal Credit (which is very much not the same thing as Universal Basic Income) in order to run the line at a Champions’ League match tonight in Barcelona.

Tories huffily pointed out that the electorate had known he was a football official when they elected him, and on the surface they had a point. That fact was indeed known in advance, just like when Alex Salmond was elected in 2015 on a dual mandate to serve at both Holyrood and Westminster, despite fabricated Tory fury at the move.

(They also made a big play of the fact that he’d conducted “over 50 surgeries” since being elected, while neglecting to point out that almost all of them had been done over the space of just five days in August, and they lasted just 45 minutes each.)

But there’s only one small fly in that ointment. Because Ross had previously caused anger by double-jobbing in football when he was an MSP, prior to quitting Holyrood to stand for Westminster instead, and when he asked voters to make him an MP he did so while contritely and solemnly pledging that if elected he’d do more to prioritise politics over what he described as his “hobby”.

But we suppose when you set the responsibility to protect vulnerable people right on your own doorstep from massive, life-destroying hardship against the glamour of a match at the Nou Camp, all that goes right out of the window. Whether it’s parliaments or jobs, Douglas Ross clearly just can’t resist the lure of the bigger stage.