The Tories & A Third Way: Real Home Rule for Scotland

How brave are the Scottish Tories? Brave enough to appreciate that they might have to risk the Union to save it? Bold enough to recognise that much greater powers for Holyrood are in their interest just as much as such additional powers are something the SNP craves? Because how can there be a right-of-centre revival while Holyrood is charged with spending but is not expected (or allowed) to do the dirty work of raising its own revenue? And, mark this, Scottish politics needs a centre-right party that is credible and capable of offering an alternative to the smug consensus that otherwise too often dominates Scottish politics. Holyrood is unbalanced at present, both in terms of its responsibilities and the range of views heard within its walls.

So what can fix that? Well, some variant of “devo max” can solve the responsibility problem. And doing so might also be the one thing that can help revive the centre-right in Scotland.