Tories

So farewell then, Annabel Goldie. As Hamish Macdonnell says, your position was weakened by the inquest into last year’s disappointing (let’s be kind, here) Westminster results. But Miss (never Ms) Goldie can step down knowing that her party is better-off than either Labour or the Liberal Democrats. A cynic might suggest it’s easy for a leader to be honest when they know they have little chance of being invited into government, no matter what result the election might produce. And cynicism always appeals. Nevertheless – a very Annabelish word – the election campaign went almost as well for the Scottish Tories as could have been hoped. True, they lost a

Scottish elecctions tend to be boring. Little happens. Small earthquake in Scotland, not many dead. Just for once, however, that has not been the case tonight. Labour’s dismal, depressing, you-cannae-do-anything-right campaign met its deserved end. Even so, who predicted the SNP could win FPTP seats in Lanarkshire and Renfrewshire. Who thought they could win a majority of Glasgow city seats? Who foresaw their historic breakthrough in Edinburgh? Andy here’s-how-you-wash-your-hands Kerr and Tom McCabe and many other senior Labourites were toppled. Even Iain Gray only survived by 150 or so votes. Labour spent much of the evening arguing that the story was the collapse of the Lib Dem vote. In some

The Scotsman’s endorsement of the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives is so thoroughly, even startlingly, sensible it could almost have been written by me*. [T]here is no other credible candidate for First Minister beyond Mr Salmond. Despite his party’s apparently staunch commitment to statism, we also know the SNP leader is passionate about the role of business and free enterprise in generating jobs and growth for Scotland, within or outwith the Union. In that, he and many of his colleagues – finance secretary John Swinney is one – share the beliefs of the Tories, and we feel there may be common ground between them. SCOTLAND needs a strong First Minister

Granted, Dave is no Muhammad Ali* and the idea of comparing Ed Miliband to George Foreman is one of the more preposterous notions ever conceived by man. Nevertheless, I wonder if Cameron, backed by his cornermen George and Nick, are playing rope-a-dope with Labour. This may not have been what they envisaged when they took office last year and it may be a strategy developed in extremis and one forced upon them by a suddenly developed appraisal of their own weakness. Nevertheless, if it is a plan it is one that might work. This thought was sparked by Fraser’s excellent post on the signs that the government has taken the

Scotland on Sunday publishes a thumper of a poll today that suggests the SNP is on course to defeat Labour and remain the largest party at Holyrood. In fact, John Curtice’s calculations have the Nats taking 55 seats to Labour’s 49. The Tories, meanwhile, slip to 14 while the Lib Dems suffer a catastrophe and would be left with just six MSPs, just ahead of the Greens with five seats. Should this poll be accurate and should the election – which is still 18 fun-stuffed days away – produce a result of this sort then happy days indeed. By which I mean, of course, not-as-desperate-as-they-might-have-been-days. Kenny Farquharson lays it on

Good to see that Tim Montgomerie is keeping his peepers peeled on this, producing his latest edition of Sell-Out Watch* today. He concludes: The Coalition is still doing plenty of very important things that Conservatives can be very proud of. The budget eradication plan. Lower corporation tax. Welfare reform. A massive increase in the number of academies and the introduction of the English Baccalaureate. Over 100,000 extra apprenticeships. At the moment, however, with the Prime Minister focused on international affairs there are signs that in the weekly tug-o-war the Coalition is sadly fulfilling my law and drifting leftwards, inch-by-inch. The evidence for this is mixed to say the least. Tim

Obvious John Rentoul bait as this may be, the answer is still a definite No. Actually that’s not quite fair. Nick Clegg and at least some of his parliamentary colleagues are serious; much of the party membership and, above all, the people who often vote Lib Dem are not. That’s one thing to take from the revealing exchange James reports: The most political part of the Lib Dem electorate is, I suspect, the lefties scunnered by Tony Blair who thought they were buying into a more radical, truly left-wing, party when they hitched their colours to the Lib Dem mast. For all his occasional sanctimony, these people severely misjudged Nick

That’s the question Jeff Breslin asks at Better Nation and, as a bonus, he gets the answer right too: Alex Salmond. In truth, it’s not a difficult question no matter how one approaches it. From a governance perspective the SNP have been modestly underwhelming. This still represents a major advance from the days of the Labour-Lib Dem coalition that preceded them. Nor is there any reason to hope for anything this time around from a Labour party actively hostile to anything that might even be mistaken for a fresh idea. On those grounds alone, a Labour minority ministry in Edinburgh is a dreary prospect. The Scottish elections in May are

Though this blog has tried to ignore the fact, there are elections to the Scottish Parliament this year. In just over ten weeks time in fact. I’ve ignored the subject because, frankly, the idea of Iain Gray – he’s the leader of the Labour party in Scotland – becoming First Minister is too depressing to contemplate before the idea is thrust upon us by cruel reality and dastardly necessity. Mr Gray is the fifth person to lead Labour’s Holyrood group since devolution and by some hefty distance the least impressive. This is a low bar to fail to clear but there you have it. For months now it has looked

Well, the government would have done better to read Fraser’s response to the fall in GDP before they went and blamed much of the 0.5% decrease on the inclement weather. Cue “Wrong kind of snow” jokes everywhere. And, frankly, Tories would be laughing all the way to the nearest TV studio had Gordon Brown ever suggested something similar. Better, surely, to agree that the figures are disappointing but stress that they are the first and therefore somewhat provisional numbers that may well be revised in due course. Not a great line to sell but some days you take a beating and just make things worse by trying to wriggle out

Oh dear. That is to say, three cheers for this comedy post by the New Statesman’s Laurie Penny. It turns out there is scarcely any limit to David Cameron’s deviousness. I mean, consider all this: Over the next two and a half years, a full calendar of bread and circuses has been scheduled to keep the British public happy and obedient while the government puts its economic shock doctrine into effect. This year, it’s the Wedding of Mass Distraction; next year it’s the Diamond Jubilee and after that the Olympics. The timing is a gift for any government attempting to push through punitive and unpopular reforms – the chance to

An interesting story on local government reform in the Daily Mail: Nick Clegg is demanding councils be given the power to impose a massive range of new local taxes. Among the levies he suggests are for fuel, alcohol, office parking, landfill and even speeding. But the Liberal Democrat Deputy Prime Minister is being blocked by Eric Pickles, the Tory minister who is in charge of local government. Hard-pressed taxpayers – who have witnessed enormous council tax rises over the past decade, and are now struggling to cope with the effect of the recession – will be angry at any sign the Government is planning to impose additional local charges. Local

John McTernan makes the case: Paradoxically, it is the increaing unpopularity of the Liberal Democrats that will bind them closer to the Tories. It’s illogical, I know. Being in the Coalition has halved their support, so really they should leave as soon as possible. But they won’t, they’ll cling on for dear life. Economists know this as the “sunk cost fallacy” – ordinary people use the phrase “good money after bad”. Essentially, most of us have an aversion to loss, so we tell ourselves any stories we can think of rather than do the logical thing and cut our losses. For sure, some Lib Dems think that there will be an upside.