Today Wales! Tomorrow Scotland?

Iain Dale says he has absolutely no idea why the Scottish Tories have failed to make as much headway as their Welsh counterparts.

A new opinion poll puts the Conservatives on 32% on Wales, only 3% behind Labour, and a massive 11% up on the last general election. However, in Scotland, the Conservative ratings are only marginally up on 2005, Why is this? Why are Welsh Conservatives so much more successful than their counterparts north of Hadrian’s Wall?

We’ve ridden these marches here before, but another trip can’t do any harm. The first and most obvious answer is that the SNP is a much stronger beast than Plaid Cymri for reasons that have plenty to do with the last 700 hundred years of history and the fabric of the Union since its foundation. And in Scotland it is the SNP who are the leading alternative to Labour: unhappy with Gordon Brown? Well it makes more sense – rationally speaking – to vote SNP than it does Tory.