RUTH Davidson has insisted that the Scottish Conservatives are set for their best ever Holyrood performance and she “stands ready to serve” as the Leader of the Opposition in the Scottish Parliament.
But Labour ridiculed the Scottish party leader’s aspiration, branding her “just another Tory”. 
Ms Davidson acknowledged the SNP were streets ahead in the opinion polls but argued that if voters did not want to change the government in Edinburgh on May 5, they should call time on Labour's “shambolic” opposition.
She made the plea after a poll last week put her party narrowly ahead of Scottish Labour in the constituency section of the ballot.
While Labour has been the main opposition at Holyrood since 2007, a YouGov survey put support for Kezia Dugdale's party at 19 per cent, just below the Conservatives, who polled 20 per cent.
In the regional list vote, where a fierce battle for seats between the opposition parties is expected, Labour and the Tories were tied on 20 points.
Ms Davidson told the Murnaghan show on Sky News that for nine years she had "watched the official opposition the Labour Party not lay a glove on the SNP".
She added: "They're shambolic, they've not been tremendously competent. Something in Scotland needs to change and if the voters of Scotland choose not to change the government of Scotland,  they should change the opposition and I stand ready to serve."
The Conservatives, whose best ever result at Holyrood has been to return 18 MSPs, were "on course" to achieve a record result on May 5, Ms Davidson insisted.
"I stand ready to make a strong contribution in the next Parliament,” declared Ms Davidson. “There's lots of issues in Scotland we need to resolve, not least the flirtation the SNP continues having with a second referendum. We had a referendum, it was in September 2014 and, as long as they talk about independence, I will speak for the two million votes in Scotland that said 'no thank you, we want to remain part of the United Kingdom’."
But a spokesman for Scottish Labour said: "Ruth Davidson wants people to believe that she is a modern Tory but her support for the SNP's hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts to schools and other vital public services is straight out of the 1980s. Voting with the SNP to block using the powers of the Parliament to stop hundreds of millions of pounds of cuts is a funny kind of opposition.
"The problem for Ruth Davidson is that people know she is just another Tory like David Cameron and George Osborne," he added.