Ochone, ochone! The plight of the Scottish Tories has been receiving attention again this week. As Pete pointed out, the latest Tartan poll puts the Tories at just 18% north of the Tweed. This means, 12 years on from the 1997 disaster, that, in Iain Martin’s words, “They’re getting absolutely nowhere, slowly.” True.
In 1979, Scottish Conservatives won 22 seats and comprised 6.5% of the UK parliamentary party. It’s fair to say they’ll get nowhere near that next year. But look at this list of some of the seats the Tories won thirty years ago: Aberdeenshire East, Angus South, Argyll, Banff, Galloway, Moray &Nairn, Perth & East Perthshire. Most were taken from the SNP, whose own representation slumped from 11 to just 2 MPs.
Indeed, expectations of a Tory revival in Scotland might usefully be considered in the light of the SNP’s own performance in Westminster elections, for the Tories are now where the SNP was thirty years ago when they won 17% of the Scottish vote.
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