The Scottish Tories Need a New Horse, Not a New Jockey

The unexpectedly interesting struggle to lead the Scottish Tories (no-one is interested in the plight of the Scottish Liberal Democrats) rumbles on. In Manchester this week, Murdo Fraser’s supporters have done their best to look chipper but the fact is that his brave decision to suggest scrapping the party and starting again is beginning to look like a blunder. It is not that Fraser’s analysis is wrong, far from it, merely that asking the Tories to endorse a withering critique of their past and probable future failures is asking more of them than it is reasonable to expect.

If Murdo had run an orthodox campaign, his supporters say, he’d have won the leadership at a canter. If this is so, perhaps it would have been a good idea to run an orthodox campaign and use his victory as the mandate for a period of investigation and consultation to make the changes Fraser believes, not without reason, are required if right-of-centre politics is to have a better future in Scotand.