Reviving Scottish Conservatism: A Lost Decade?

A reader asks, not without reason, what I think of the Scottish Tories attempts at a makeover since their wipeout in 1997 and whether, given that I’m generally, broadly speaking, in favour of the reformers when it comes to Project Cameron or Project GOP, I’m also happy with the Scottish Tories softer than softly-softly approach to decontaminating their “brand”.

So, not too much to chew on there. The first thing to be wary of is our old friend the Pundit’s Fallacy. That is, the erroneous belief that a given political party’s electoral prospects would be transformed if only they were sensible enough to tailor their policies to fit my own particular prejudices. Secondly, the extent to which the Scottish Conservatives were despised makes the English Tories’ problems look like nothing to get terribly upset about. Thirdly, one should remember that pundits have a bias for “bold” action that is not necessarily shared by the electorate.