Skip to main content

Scottish Tories show their Colours

The election for the next leader of the Scottish Conservatives has become increasingly rancorous. Murdo Fraser, the current deputy leader has put forward an interesting and brave idea that the "Conservative" brand in Scotland is so toxic that it needs to be changed. The remaining four candidates reject his analysis and suggest that the way forward is simply to be more vehement about where they stand now.


The fact is though, that the Conservatives stand nowhere. They long ago lost the support of the urban proletariat, then the Kirk, then latterly even industry, and now farmers. Without renewal, they are condemned to die out- and the greatest part of this renewal is to stop reminding the Scottish people how much they opposed the new constitutional arrangements. 


A huge number of erstwhile Conservative voters have defected to the SNP, and yet the message does not seem to have come home to the party as to what this means.


The backbiting, both in public and in private against Murdo Fraser's stand suggests that he is facing an uphill task to say the least. However, if he does not win, the outlook for the Scottish Tories is even more terminal than if he does. The backward looking nature of the whole debate shows how far some Tories still have to go in order to recognize that much of their predicament is down to their own political choices. As old dinosaurs such as Michael Forsyth or light-weights like David Mundell emerge to "defend the Union", it is hard to even recognize what kind of Union it is that they want to defend.


While the Scottish Liberal Democrats begin to lick their wounds, it is possible to see where and how they can address the incredibly strong hostility to the Lib Dem participation in the coalition- the Lib Dems are toxic by association, but the Tories are just toxic. It requires the  kind of thinking that Murdo Fraser is putting forward for the party to even arrest its decline, never mind to make progress at the next Holyrood election or defeat the referendum on Separatism that Alex Salmond wants to time for maximum political advantage in a couple of years. 


Yet the SNP- lead by "His High Excellency" (allegedly Salmond's preferred form of address after any independence was established)- are far from invulnerable, even if Labour may lack the ability or desire to land the killer blow. A rejuvenated Progressive Party (or whatever brand that the Conservatives choose) could reanimate a new Federal relationship with the rest of the UK, which is what opinion polls repeatedly tell us that the Scottish People would prefer instead of SNP-style separatism. 


Of course if Murdo Fraser is defeated, the risk is that the Conservatives remain in the cold and can not participate in, let alone lead, a drive to overturn the dead-end socialism that has dominated and stagnated Scottish politics for half a century.


Murdo Fraser has demonstrated the kind of courage that is needed to lead his party out of the desert- the question is whether the Conservatives still choose to worship the dead idol of "Unionism" or to embrace the new political reality that can lead them back to the political heartland, and coincidentally rescue the common state from the risk of total dissolution.

Comments

GHmltn said…
I totally agree with this.

Although as a Scottish LibDem I wonder what the route back is for us and who have we lost and why?

The difference is we have not been on a downward trajectory for over 40 years - in fact we have on the whole strengthened until an abrupt fall - at the Holyrood level at least - after 2010.

But as a breed we too are challenged at the moment. What, Cicero, is your musing on this?
Newmania said…
Were the Conservative Party to abandon the Union, as you seem to wish, it suit the English rather more than it would the Scots and English Conservatives most of all.

Is that what you really want? I could be convinced
Cicero said…
Newmania... if you want to end the common state, that is how you would do it. I think it benefits all of us, but I understand the work required to make it so...

Popular posts from this blog

Concert and Blues

Tallinn is full tonight... Big concerts on at the Song field The Weeknd and Bonnie Tyler (!). The place is buzzing and some sixty thousand concert goers have booked every bed for thirty miles around Tallinn. It should be a busy high summer, but it isn´t. Tourism is down sharply overall. Only 70 cruise ships calling this season, versus over 300 before Ukraine. Since no one goes to St Pete, demand has fallen, and of course people think that Estonia is not safe. We are tired. The economy is still under big pressure, and the fall of tourism is a significant part of that. The credit rating for Estonia has been downgraded as the government struggles with spending. The summer has been a little gloomy, and soon the long and slow autumn will drift into the dark of the year. Yesterday I met with more refugees: the usual horrible stories, the usual tears. I try to make myself immune, but I can´t. These people are wounded in spirit, carrying their grief in a terrible cradling. I try to project hop

Media misdirection

In the small print of the UK budget we find that the Chancellor of the Exchequer (the British Finance Minister) has allocated a further 15 billion Pounds to the funding for the UK track and trace system. This means that the cost of the UK´s track and trace system is now 37 billion Pounds.  That is approximately €43 billion or US$51 billion, which is to say that it is amount of money greater than the national GDP of over 110 countries, or if you prefer, it is roughly the same number as the combined GDP of the 34 smallest economies of the planet.  As at December 2020, 70% of the contracts for the track and trace system were awarded by the Conservative government without a competitive tender being made . The program is overseen by Dido Harding , who is not only a Conservative Life Peer, but the wife of a Conservative MP, John Penrose, and a contemporary of David Cameron and Boris Johnson at Oxford. Many of these untendered contracts have been given to companies that seem to have no notewo

Bournemouth absence

Although I had hoped to get down to the Liberal Democrat conference in Bournemouth this year, simple pressure of work has now made that impossible. I must admit to great disappointment. The last conference before the General Election was always likely to show a few fireworks, and indeed the conference has attracted more headlines than any other over the past three years. Some of these headlines show a significant change of course in terms of economic policy. Scepticism about the size of government expenditure has given way to concern and now it is clear that reducing government expenditure will need to be the most urgent priority of the next government. So far it has been the Liberal Democrats that have made the running, and although the Conservatives are now belatedly recognising that cuts will be required they continue to fail to provide even the slightest detail as to what they think should guide their decisions in this area. This political cowardice means that we are expected to ch