The Tories’ Return: New poll puts Conservatives ahead of Labour in Scotland

At the 1997 general election the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party won 17.5 percent of the vote and lost its last remaining 11 seats in Scotland. Scotland was now a Tory-free zone, at least in terms of its parliamentary representatives.

Nearly twenty years later, the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party might, if next week’s elections to the Holyrood parliament follow the pattern revealed by today’s STV/Ipsos-Mori poll, finish in second-place. They may achieve this on little more than 18 percent of the vote.

In other words, this is Schrodinger’s Revival: it is both real and not real and it all depends upon how you look at, or think about, it. Has Ruth Davidson emerged as a vigorous, capable, Tory leader who can spread the Tory gospel to new congregations? Yes. Have the Tories actually enjoyed a major revival? Up to a point.

Granted, if you allow for all the Tory pensioners who have moved to new, celestial, constituencies in the past 20 years you can make a case that the Conservatives are doing surprisingly well for a party that was declared all-but extinct before devolution saved them from their own preferences.