NOT sure about you, but I’m struggling to drum up even a flicker of genuine enthusiasm for next week’s general election. I honestly can’t remember a campaign when the gulf between the narratives offered by the parties and the likely reality for the electorate was wider, or the chances of finding clarity amid the false claims and counter claims slimmer.

All the parties indulge in the deliberate twisting of facts and figures. But Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson’s confusing, dishonest, and frankly bizarre comments on immigration at the end of last week saw an already poor campaign descend to a new low.

I get that Ms Davidson was struggling to defend the UK party’s stance on immigration during a BBC interview, just as she finds herself on shaky ground when an ever-increasing list of unpopular UK Government policies are mentioned. But instead of just sticking to the bland lines and trying to move the interviewer on - the usual tropes - Ms Davidson went on an insulting rant about Scotland being “uniquely unattractive” to migrants, evidenced, she claimed, by the fact that only four per cent of them choose to settle in Scotland. The reason for this, she gleefully told us, was that Scotland is the highest taxed part of the UK. Our only hope, she opined, is to become more “pro-business”, so we can grow the economy and… attract more migrants to Scotland.

So, let’s get this straight, Ruth. You want more migrants in Scotland, despite the fact the Prime Minister you support has committed herself to cutting immigration and driving through the UK’s exit from the European Union, surely the least pro-business policy ever undertaken in these islands? And refused to allow Scotland to have its own immigration system. But then in the next sentence you say it’s not racist to suggest we need an immigration system that “people believe in”, surely code for cutting the numbers?

Talk about confused. And hypocritical. Indeed, the whole thing is pretty disingenuous. As pointed out by Scottish fact-checking service The Ferret, the four per cent figure used by Ms Davidson is well out of date – the most recent level of UK migrants coming to Scotland is seven per cent, with our population making up eight per cent of the UK. Uniquely unattractive? Really? Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of people born outside of UK who have chosen live, work and have a stake in Scotland.

As for the inference that either highly educated EU migrants from Germany or indeed low-skilled fruit pickers from Albania are poring over the SNP’s plans on tax before deciding whether to move to Scotland – that’s laughable. Both these types of migrant important to our economy. Our unique geographical, demographic and economic challenges means we need more people, as Ruth Davidson knows fine well.

And, if she is so keen to talk about tax, perhaps she should read what Prof Anton Muscatelli, Principal and Vice Chancellor of the University of Glasgow and independent advisor to the Scottish Government on Brexit, had to say on the matter only few days ago. Any decline in the 180,000 EU nationals living in Scotland post-Brexit will hit our already fragile tax base - and public services - hard, the renowned economist pointed out. As this paper highlighted earlier this month, the loss of European GPs from our struggling NHS could impact some 225,000 patients in Scotland.

With this in mind, the fact that Ruth Davidson, this time last year one of the staunchest defenders of the UK’s membership of the EU, is prepared to use false figures to create a disingenuous narrative she clearly doesn’t even believe in, to get a Prime Minister re-elected who also possibly doesn’t believe in what she’s doing, but is prepared to drive us off the cliff anyway, is not only mind-bloggling, but immensely depressing.