David Cameron must get his party in tune in Scotland
Scottish Tories will fail to recover from the wipeout of 1997 unless the whole party makes its position clear on issues north of the Border,
writes Alan Cochrane in the Telegraph.
And the thing is he is right. There are really two schools of Tories in Scotland, the true Unionists who want little to do with devolution and the rest, like me, who like the idea of a bit of self-government.
The balancing act that needs to be done to keep these two groups together is very tricky. It remains to be seen which group “wins” in Scotland, I’m easy with devolution as it stands as I think it brings us a better understanding of the particular problems and issues that face Scotland rather than having a London centric view imposed on us. It also allows us to be more a master of our own Destiny which is important to any nation of people.
Alan sums it up neatly at the end
There is no doubt that the professor is correct in his assessment of the Scottish party’s view of devolution, or at least — in the opinion of this observer — the confused messages the Tories are sending to the voters on the issue.
Whereas Welsh Tories cast off their doubts about the constitutional change immediately, a significant section of the Scottish party remained suspicious of its alleged benefits. This became more pronounced as they saw the election of an SNP administration, committed to breaking up the United Kingdom, in 2007. In this, they were supported by this column.
“So far, but no farther,” has been the attitude of this grouping, in sharp contrast to the view of Miss Goldie. She has tried to lead from the front in espousing a much more pro-devolutionist stance and has supported enthusiastically the granting of extra powers to the Scottish Parliament.
But she has been thwarted by a sizeable body of opinion in both her parliamentary and voluntary parties. The result has been, at least in relation to Calman, Mr Cameron’s “wait and see” compromise.
Their policy on devolution aside, the Scottish Tories have failed to make much of a dent in the two-horse race between Labour and the SNP over the past 13 years.
This is in spite of vast sums spent — principally by Central Office in London — on trying to resuscitate the Scottish party. Mr Cameron is desperate to make a decent showing north of the Border, in order to avoid the accusation, should he win
the general election but no extra Scottish seats, that he has no mandate to govern there.
To this end, the Tories are targeting 11 seats. The truth is that a much more modest gain — of two or three seats — would be seen as a success.
There is some anecdotal evidence to suggest that Cameron’s leadership of the Conservative party is proving popular in Scotland.
But he has an enormous mountain still to climb, beginning with his speech tomorrow. It will have to contain more than the odd jibe against Alex Salmond.
The Tories in Scotland need to build upon the shoots of a Tory revival in Scotland and they can only do this by being united. Until this happens we won’t achieve the amount of seats we should and will only take the 3-4 mentioned above. We also need to be prepared for the changes that will happen if the SNP ever get their Referendum, because succeed or fail it will change, for a long time, the political setup in Scotland
via David Cameron must get his party in tune to give Scottish Tories any chance of success – Telegraph.
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