Margaret Thatcher and Scotland: A Story of Mutual Incomprehension

There is a poignant passage in Margaret Thatcher’s memoirs during which she contemplates her failure in Scotland. She seemed puzzled by this, noting that, in her view, many of her ideas and principles had at least some Caledonian ancestry. And yet, despite her admiration for David Hume and, especially, Adam Smith, there was no Tartan Thatcherite revolution. Sure, there were some true believers – Teddy Taylor, Michael Forsyth – but Scotland never warmed to the Iron Lady. And she never quite knew or understood why.

Two issues, above all, led to her downfall. Europe and the Poll Tax. The former was a Westminster affair and a matter of internal internecine conflict within the cabinet; the latter lost her the country.

It was a policy conceived in Scotland. Not just delivered but actually conceived and first implemented north of the Tweed. The introduction of the Community Charge – that is, the Poll Tax – would likely have proved disastrous however it was done but it was implemented in ways that could scarcely have been better designed to destroy the Conservative and Unionist Party in Scotland.