Scotland

The ballots for the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party’s leadership election have been posted to members and few people, I think, have any real idea as to what the result will be. In general terms, as readers know, I’m sympathetic to Murdo Fraser’s analysis of the woes afflicting conservatism in Scotland and unpersuaded that Ruth Davidson’s campaign has been as good as it should have been. These concerns were scarcely assuaged by Ruth’s article in last week’s Scotland on Sunday. Choked with cliches and boilerplate it was a depressingly thin analysis of the state of the party. “We need to change ourselves, not our name” she wrote which is, well,

If Murdo Fraser can boast that a bare majority of his colleagues are backing his leadership campaign, Ruth Davidson enjoys the support of many of the party grandees. Indeed with the likes of Michael Ancram and Lords Forsyth and Sanderson in her corner it’s tempting to suggest her campaign amounts to Yesterday’s Men for Tomorrow’s Woman. The best thing Ruth – whom I’ve known for many years – has done in this campaign is pledge to support cutting income tax. Not because there’s any prospect the Tories will be able to deliver this any time soon but because it sends an overdue signal about what the party believes in. It

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

Regarding Mr Miliband’s hapless interview with BBC Scotland David, like James Kirkup, expresses what is the conventional view in London: But, as James Kirkup notes, the Scottish Labour Party is a serious issue. It is the only check on Alex Salmond, which makes it essential to the future of the union. And it’s important for Labour’s electoral recovery, not that you’d realise that listening to the senior party. As I revealed on Sunday, Labour shadow minister Ivan Lewis displayed extraordinary complacency about Scotland at a fringe event, implying that Labour will return to power in Holyrood as a matter of course, no effort required. Miliband’s ignorance only compounds that sense…

Like most sensible folk I have a grand opinion of Alan Cochrane and, this being the case, alert readers will know that this is by way of a throat-clearing before we move on to the business of suggesting that his latest Daily Telegraph column is a little less persuasive than the Sage of Angus would like it to be. As Alan concludes: It is hard not to sympathise with what Mr Fraser is trying to do. Something dramatic does need to happen to galvanise centre-right supporters in Scotland and the idea of a completely separate party but which is part of an electoral pact with the UK Conservatives in the

There are three things to be said about Murdo Fraser’s willingness to put his own party out of its misery: this is not a new idea, it is not enough, on its own, to spark a centre-right revival in Scottish politics and it is a brave way to begin a leadership campaign. Tactically it is a risky ploy; strategically it makes sense. Put all this together and there’s every chance, yet again, that nothing will come of it.  For that matter, it may be a mistake to make this the crucial issue in the leadership campaign. The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party may be feeble but it is also stubborn