CONSERVATIVE grandee Lord Andrew Dunlop has condemned Boris Johnson for running a, "Just William government of japes and scrapes."

Writing in today's Herald, he says: "People who used to laugh with Boris are starting to laugh at him. Or deciding he’s no laughing matter at all."

Lord Dunlop, a former Scotland Office minister and adviser to former Prime Ministers David Cameron and Thersea May, says he believes Johnson can still be a great leader.

He says people can see that the PM is genuinely interested in big, bold and original ideas – and contrasted that with what he sees as the caution and conservatism of the Scottish Government.

But the Scots peer, who was born in Helensburgh, warned the UK is at a transformative moment. "Omicron. UK renewal post-Brexit. A climate emergency. States, like China, hostile to our liberal values. An information technology revolution changing rapidly our whole way of life. Just one of these issues would test any government. This government is having to deal with all of them at the same time.

"The country can ill afford a Prime Minister who appears, through carelessness, to be sabotaging his own government."

READ LORD DUNLOP'S COLUMN HERE