Easy Populism

In her speech yesterday Annabel Goldie decried the cheap and easy populism that she, rightly, described as the SNP’s approach to government. Fair enough. A shame, therefore, that she resorted to just that kind of easy, headline grabbing, rhetoric herself. Her announcement that the Tories a) respect the right of judges to decide matters for themselves and b) propose madatory two year prison terms for anyone guilty of simply carrying a knife was both contradictory and disappointing. Also sadly predictable.

But it’s a measure of the hole the Scottish Tories still find themselves in that this easy populism was the “major” part of her speech. Just as revealing was her plea for voters to judge the Tories on their merits now, not on the perceived wickedness of their past. One senior Tory disputed my suggestion that the party had been in a defensive crouch for the past dozen years: “We’ve been feart, but I don’t think we are any more”.