Wannabe Conservative MSPs were put through a gruelling Sandhurst-style boot camp before being allowed to stand for election, it can be revealed.
The Courier has also learned that anyone who wanted to be in the running for the party in next May’s contest had to pay £175 to be put through their paces by business, legal and HR experts.
Scottish leader Ruth Davidson sat the Sandhurst entrance exam in 2004, breaking her back in the process, and it is understood non-physical elements from that have been utilised in the Tory assessment.
Ex-Territorial Army signaller Ms Davidson was the first to complete the programme that current MSPs had to sign up to if they wished to stand again.
Mary Scanlon, Jamie McGrigor, Cameron Buchanan, Alex Fergusson, Gavin Brown and Nanette Milne have all decided to stand down, so the vast majority of applicants were new faces.
It was far from plain sailing, with around 10% of the crop of more than 200 understood to have failed.
Written tests took place alongside group work and oral assessments.
Previously, applicants had to pay £20 and sit a single interview to be passed as a candidate.
Ms Davidson will tell her candidates to go into battle to win No voters from Labour and the Liberal Democrats in next May’s Holyrood election.
In her warm up speech for Prime Minister David Cameron at the Conservative conference in Manchester, Ms Davidson will say her party represents the two million Scots who backed the Union.
She will say: “In May, many Scottish Conservative voters supported other pro UK parties in the hope of stopping the SNP. I can tell you, there are two reasons why this will not happen next year.
“Firstly, because Labour and the LibDems now seem to be embarrassed by their support for Scotland’s place in the UK. And secondly it’s because next year every single vote counts.
“As the head of our campaign, I have made it clear to my team that I want to target the regional list vote next year. And for so long as the SNP refuses to rule out another referendum, our message for voters looking to cast that second vote is clear.
“Whichever party you support, use that vote intelligently. And if you’re one of the two million people who voted No in last year’s referendum, use it as your intelligent vote for the Union.”
Tory strategists have decided to put much more focus on list success rather than local constituencies during the campaign, with 70% of campaigning and funding going to that side of things.
The “radical shift” compares to 1999, when just 5% was spent on the list.
Chief whip John Lamont, who is standing in the Borders, is likely to be the only constituency candidate to benefit from concentrated backing.