Lawyer and politician;

Born August 6, 1952; Died August 12, 2013.

David McLetchie, who has died aged 61, saw his political career rise as the first de facto leader of the Scottish Conservative Party, and fall after being forced to resign following a scandal involving taxi expenses.

Many politicians suffer from being remembered solely for their demise, but Mr McLetchie's ascendency was not­able in that - at least for while - it made a beleaguered political party appear both credible and capable of electoral recovery.

David McLetchie was born in the Meadowbank area of Edinburgh, the son of James Watson McLetchie and Catherine Alexander Gray. Destined for Leith Academy after attending the school's feeder primary, a scholarship instead took him to George Heriot's. After graduating in law from Edinburgh University he trained as a solicitor with Shepherd & Wedderburn before joining Tods Murray in 1980.

There, Mr McLetchie specialised in tax, trusts and estate planning as a partner, juggling his legal work with Scottish Conservative politics. At the 1979 General Election he had taken on Labour's Robin Cook in Edinburgh Central, who held the seat for Labour with a majority of nearly 5000. McLetchie would not contest another election for two decades.

Initially active in the Young Conservatives, he instead pursued a career in the voluntary wing of the party. A perceptive observer of the Scottish Tory Party's unpopularity as the 1980s drew to a close, he once wrote privately that "the perception of the Conservatives as an English-based and English-run party is the biggest single factor in our current standing in Scotland".

In 1992 he was elected vice-president, and thereafter president, of the old Scottish Conservative and Unionist Association (SCUA). Ironically, his opportunity for a front-line political career came after the Conservative Party lost all its Scottish MPs at the 1997 General Election. As Scottish Conservatives licked their wounds, Mr McLetchie rejected plans for an autonomous party north of the Border ("a complete nonsense") and, after Scots voted overwhelmingly for a Scottish Parliament, announced his intention to stand as an MSP. In 1998 prospective candidates and constituency association chairman also met to select their first de facto "leader".

He was one of two candidates, the other being the former Ayr MP Phil Gallie. Mr McLetchie won by a whisker, with 91 votes to 83. The closeness of the result surprised many, and reflected concerns - expressed at that year's party conference in a "whispering" campaign - that he lacked the necessary experience and charisma to do the job.

Following the 1999 Scottish Parliament election, he quickly established himself as a capable leader and fine debater, despite having the least experience of the four party chiefs. Although identified with the right of the party, he also appealed to pro-devolutionists in the Scottish Tory Reform Group.

Mr McLetchie said the election had given his party "an opportunity to get back on the pitch" and away from the sidelines. "For the first time in a generation, there are Conservatives representing every region in Scotland," he said, "we will be the Unionist opposition at Holyrood."

As leader, he essentially pursued a core-vote strategy, highlighting the new Parliament's failings - not least a growing row about the cost of a new building at Holyrood - and appealing to social conservatives by arguing that Scottish Executive priorities, such as the repeal of Section 28, were out of kilter with most Scots. His fledgling leadership was also boosted when his party won the Ayr by-election in March 2000.

In an attempt to "detoxify" the Scottish Tory brand, Mr McLetchie also backed some very un-Tory like policy initiatives, not least free personal care for the elderly. More widely, however, he lacked a clear and positive Conservative approach to a newly-devolved Scotland. Concerned with party unity rather than strategy, when the list MSP for Mid-Scotland and Fife Nick Johnston quit Parliament in August 2001, he accused Mr McLetchie of having "no idea how to lead".

When Henry McLeish resigned a few months later, however, Mr McLetchie was widely credited with having claimed a high-profile scalp, having relentlessly attacked the Labour First Minister over the so-called "Officegate" affair involving undeclared sublets at his constituency office in Fife. Ironically, within four years a similar scandal would also end Mr McLetchie's leadership career.

The 2003 Scottish Parliament elections brought further good news. Not only did he win Edinburgh Pentlands from Labour (he had previously served as a Lothians list MSP), but the party gained two other constituency seats and achieved a modest increase in vote share. In a generally grim context for the Scottish Tory Party, it was a creditable result which compared favourably with those that followed in 2007 and 2011.

Mr McLetchie continued his essentially cautious core-vote strategy in the 2003-07 Parliament, although he occasionally toyed with the idea of backing "fiscal autonomy", arguing it was unhealthy for the Parliament and Scottish Executive to be seen "wholly as a spending institution with limited financial responsibility".

When, in the autumn of 2005, it emerged he had allegedly claimed more than £5000 in taxi fares for non-Parliamentary activities, he became perhaps the first victim of Scotland's new Freedom of Information legislation. Already weakened by a conflict-of-interest claim which had compelled him to quit his part-time legal work at Tods Murray, he resigned.

After a spell on the backbenches and re-election in Edinburgh Pentlands in 2007 (with nearly twice his 2003 majority), he was appointed Scottish Tory Chief Whip and Business Manager, an important role given the minority status of the first SNP Scottish Government. Later, he also acted as constitutional affairs spokesman.

Mr McLetchie was elected a fourth time in 2011, although via the Lothians list having been defeated in his constituency seat by the SNP's Gordon MacDonald. He backed Murdo Fraser in a leadership contest a few months later but worked with Ruth Davidson in developing the cross-party Better Together referendum campaign. His last speech in Parliament came, appropriately for a lawyer, during an October debate on the Scottish Civil Justice Council and Criminal Legal Assistance Bill.

A keen golfer (he was a member of the Bruntsfield Links Golfing Society), Mr McLetchie was often described as "avuncular", although he could be equally short-tempered. His caustic wit was also popular with the media, who recognised his role in maintaining the relevance of the Scottish Conservative Party if not its electoral virility.

His first wife Barbara predeceased him in 1995, and he is survived by a son, James, from that marriage, and his second wife, Sheila.