Sketch: Malcolm Offord is but a simple Greenock wean

The politician formerly known as a lord wants you to know he’s just a wee Greenock wean at heart. Sure, he might now be a multimillionaire but the former Lord Offord of Garvel – just plain Malcolm now – wants to make it clear he’s from humble beginnings.

“I was born just up the road here, 33 Bank Street,” he tells a room of supporters and reporters who he’s dragged out to the Beacon Theatre in Greenock for a spot of theatrics to announce what everyone already assumed – that he’s standing in Inverclyde at the Scottish Parliament election. And to prove he really is a local boy, he goes on to give directions to his place of birth.

“So if you cross the road, past the Customs House – that Customs House is considered the finest of its type in the UK, lovely renovation there – if you cross the road to the Mid Kirk and go up the road to Bank Street, you get to number 33 Bank Street.”

Sure, it might come across a bit like a ramble but that’s just because he’s not one of those polished, professional politicians everyone hates. He’s rough round the edges and down-to-earth. Just a normal guy who happens to own a couple of yachts.

'Let’s grow the economy,' he announces... a groundbreaking approach

Continuing to burnish his local credentials, Malcolm Offord goes on to tell the room that he “went to school here” and he still has family in town. “My mother still lives here, actually around the corner there. I’m back a lot,” he insists.

“And so the question then came, when I joined Reform, where would I stand? And for me, there was only one place I wanted to do that: to come here, back to Inverclyde, for a number of reasons. Obviously, my hometown.

“But also, I think because in a way Inverclyde is almost like a microcosm of Scotland and the issues we need to deal with in Scotland as a whole, we need to deal with in Inverclyde and it’s almost like if we can solve one, we can solve the other.”

He’s already been part of the solution for Inverclyde’s woes, he says, “when I was a Scotland Office minister for three years”.

He neglects to remind those gathered what colour of government he served in at the time or how he was parachuted into that job after being handed a peerage following a few sizeable donations. That would all harm his local-boy-done-good vibes.

“I was always fighting hard for doing the levelling up and it became a bit of a standing joke, actually, in the Scotland Office because every Monday morning on the meeting, they’d say ‘What’s Malcolm asking for this week?’”

If businessmen who dabble in private equity also happen to benefit, then hey-ho, just an accidental side effect

Wait, is he openly admitting that he used his position of influence within government just to get cash for his hometown? Someone should have reminded him it was called the Scotland Office, not the Inverclyde Office.

He does at least come armed with excuses for his Inverclyde-first approach and how that works “vis-à-vis Scotland”. It’s because, he says, Inverclyde has a high number of working-age adults who aren’t economically active – a problem that is also true across Scotland. His solution is simple: “help them up and out and back into work.” Of course! Why has no one ever thought about this before? That must be the commonsense approach Reform folk are always banging on about.

“The big initiative from Reform is to say, look, let’s grow the economy,” he announces with aplomb. Truly a groundbreaking approach. A real stop-the-presses moment. No one has ever before realised that it’s the economy, stupid.

And to grow the economy, Offord says, more people need to work more, and harder, and be more productive. It’s all very simple, really.

“The major policy is going to be a tax break for all the people that work,” he says, and protecting people who earn more from “massively additional taxes”.

The people he’s referring to there, naturally, are nurses and teachers and “transportation folk” – and if businessmen who dabble in private equity also happen to benefit, then hey-ho, just an accidental side effect.

“Let’s cut the tax in Scotland so it’s 1p less than England… That sends a message out that Scotland is now the best place to live in the UK.”

Don’t make the mistake of thinking he thinks Scotland is rubbish though, because he hastily adds: “It is anyway. But let’s make the Scottish economy the most successful part of the UK and then through the life of the five-year parliament, we’ll move it down to 2p below and then 3p below.”

It’s all part of Reform’s simple one-two-three programme. Cut tax by 1p, 2p, 3p and watch the economy grow by “one per cent and then two per cent and then three per cent,” Offord says. Complicated problems require simple solutions, you see. And what could be simpler than one, two, three?

“We can actually create an amazing dynamic economy here in Scotland within the UK. So that’s the plan.” And what a good plan it is. Cut tax. Question mark, question mark, question mark. Profit. Simples…