Today Wales! Tomorrow Scotland?

Ronnie

For God's sake Alex, it's simple.

WE HATE TORIES!

They run around in tweeds owning huge estates and speaking in strange accents like Michael Ancram and Alex Douglas Home.

They test unpopular legislation on us when they are in government because they know it woun't cost them many votes at Westminster to do so.

Their greatest living ex-priminister turned up in a Glasow studio at the height of her powers and talked about 'our Scots'. Whose Scots might she have been referring to?

Tories have spent the last thirty years doing everything to ensure that they never do well in Scotland again.

I hope I haven't upset you Alex.

Alex Massie

Ronnie: Aye, well, maybe. You're right that the Poll Tax fiasco still lingers. Unfortunately much of it based on myth, not reality. The truth is that the Poll Tax was largely a Scottish idea in the first place. (St Andrews Uni & the ASI etc) and it was *only* introduced in Scotland a year earlier than in England because there was a Scottish rates revaluation coming up and the Scottish Tories were deeply concerned that this would be massively unpopular and a vote-loser. (It would have been - just not as unpopular as the Poll Tax!)

So, despite what everyone says, there wasn't any determination to use Scotland as a guinea pig. As so often cock-up rather than conspiracy was to blame. But, yes, the perception has always been rather different even if, as so often, it's wrong.

Ronnie

OK Alex, if you say so. As far as I could see your friends just couldn't find enough of their own feet to shoot and now poor Annabel, a decent woman, is trying her best to patch things up.

Ronnie

Oh, and while I'm at it. St Andrews Uni isn't really part of Scotland.

Keith D

I remember during the 60's the Tories were the largest party in Scotland.

The presentation and implementation of the Thatcher transformation didn't help but the Tories Scottish fortunes were already on the slide.Tactical voting against Labour and a rise in nationalist sentiment saw to that.

These days the Scots have yet to see their country transformed by New Labs Neather policies and are less likely to feel betrayed as we do here.

There will of course come a time when sick of North Lanarkshire style politics the referendum option,sought by Mr Salmond will be exercised.

That,I beleive will be the Tories salvation north of the border as the weakness of Scottish Labour leadership is fatally exposed.

Coupled with I hope Labours deserved decimation at the GE the dynamics in Scotland will change once again.

Tiberius

The Tories suffered in Scotland in 1997 and 2001 for the same reasons they suffered in England and Wales. But if I remember rightly, it was a complete wipe-out.

In England and Wales there was at least a base to rebuild from, but the seedless Scotland is obviously unable to bear any fruit at all.

What passes for the Scottish Conservative party is clearly useless.

Kittler

Whilst out and about this morning I was confronted by a billboard with a Mr Cameron and some message about health spending.
As I live in a country where that matter is the business of a Parliament and Government in which the gentleman is not a participant I thought it strange.
Have more widely travelled folk spotted any? Seen any posters in Paris or Holland or perhaps Germany?

David T Breaker (davidbreaker.com)

The poor situation and bleak prospects of the Conservatives north of the border should have been a priority of the Party for some time, vital as it is to preserving the Union, but unfortunately it seems to have been all but an irrelevance. It was in 1965 that the problem started, when the distinctly Scottish "Scottish Unionists" rebranded as "Conservatives" and identity wise were subsumed into the English party. A report from Leeds Univerdity in 2001 which I feature on my blog (www.davidbreaker.com) clearly identified the issue of the party lacking in "Scottishness" as a root cause of their decline from the heights of 1955, when they polled over half the vote.

Strathturret

Yes good analysis.

Edward Sutherland

It seems clear to me as an Englishman that given the well demonstrated visceral dislike/hatred of England and the English by the majority of those north of the border, the time really has come for us to go our separate ways. As in divorce, let's aim to have as clean a break as possible. It'll be sad, at least to me, after 300 years' union. But looking on the bright side: goodby to socialism and its 50 or so Scots Labour MPs; and, who knows, maybe a new Elizabethan age to mirror that before the arrival of the ill-starred Stuarts. I wish Scots all the very best, but let's really make it a complete break, including border posts, passports etc. Maybe then you won't hate us so much.

Alex Massie

Kittler: Interesting! Where was this? If ou pass it again, would you mind taking and sending me a photo of the poster?

Fitalass

Well, if Cochrane, Massie and Martin are all singing from the same hymn sheet, it must be true, or is it?

Where to start, well, it would help if these gentlemen could even get the area's where the parties were strongest correct. Oh, stronger leadership at Holyrood by ditching the most popular and high profile leader we have produced there since devolution. Yeah great idea boys, if its working, lets break it cos it ain't doing what we think it should be doing.
And as for the idea that CCHQ are working hard to give us advice and support to totally revamp our grass roots operation, the bounders, how dare they improve and motivate the troops North of the Border in such a positive manner!

Oh, cut the ties with CCHQ, love the Coulson twist in this article. My my, we don't half seem to have got in a tizz about all this extra help and support from London recently. I mean, they have turned things around in the polls down there, hell, they may even win the next GE for the first time in 13 years. What can they tell us about making a successful comeback in Scotland. Hah!

This Welsh poll has certainly got the usual suspects out trashing the Scots Tories again, well its election time and that is what they do just before it. Talk down the Scottish Tories and their electoral prospects, and tell you, and us how rubbish we are before a vote has even been cast.
I mean with three left leaning parties and an often hostile press up here, you don't think the right leaning Scots based down in London would miss the chance to stick the proverbial boot in too.

I suspect that like Wales, the Tories are improving in Scotland. But they do have the SNP to contend with, only they have managed to work through this parliament and delivered some of their manifesto promises, another first since devolution by the way. But this crew won't tell you that, no, they imply that the current incumbent is weak. Well, she was never their choice. No, its Annabel Goldie criticising time again. Only like last time, I suspect that she and Cameron will be enjoying the sound of some humble pie being eaten.

PS. You might want to check out some of the more successful industries in Scotland, there are a few you know. And its Westminster not Holyrood where the big decisions effecting their businesses happen. And that's before we mention the UK economy or Afghanistan to name just two huge issues right now. And then there is good old taxation, pensions etc. So don't peddle the line that we will not be bothered about this election or the issues that dominant it, or that its not as important who wins it either.
You would have more credibility if I could find at least one paragraph of the article that resonated.
It really makes me annoyed to read stuff like this when I can see what a difference the last few years have made, especially when I remember the bad old days of the late 90's.

Craig Strachan

"Furthermore, look at where the SNP is strongest: Perthshire, Angus, Aberdeenshire, Moray, Buchan"

Places full o' sheep, and the folk who love them.

Keith D

Edward Sutherland.
They dont hate us mate.On the contrary.
They do hate what happened to Scotland under Margaret Thatcher.

I know a majority will disagree but dont confuse Football rivalry with genuine disdain.

How many have family in,sweethearts from,or valued colleagues hailing from that part of the world?

In case it needs pointing out,we are politically tied to a European marxist state determined to foist an alien culture on us.If that danger was not present I'd be more in favour of Scottish independence.

The divorce we need is from Brussels.

Jason West

Edward, to say we Scots hate everything English is a bit strong. It's that sort of comment that makes even-tempered folk like me question the Union. This attitude the a lot English have of being ever so high and mighty may have worked well when you lot had an Empire. As someone who now lives in China it does make me chuckle when I read comments about a new Elizabethan Age for England. I'm sure the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians would have something to say about it...

Edward Sutherland

Jason, I agree a "new Elizabethan age" is very unlikely, but then so was the first one.In the mid-sixteenth century England England was pretty feeble, humiliated with the loss of Calais in Mary Tudor's reign. But we English will just have to make the best of it as we go our separate ways. Good luck to Scotland and I hope once you have independence, and complete separation, a more cordial, or at least correct, relationship will ensue.

Sir Graphus

I lived in Aberdeen for 3 of the dying years of the Major govt, and can vouch for the authenticity of Ronnie’s feelings, and the reasons. It’s a dead shame, because, leaving aside the deeply ingrained loathing of the Tories, the Scots really need a significant party that believes in low taxes, small state and private enterprise.

Bill Kenny

Forget the Nationalist trolls they're camped out beyond the borders of reason and logic. Scotland is'nt congenitally blind to the benefits of small government, low taxes individual freedom and the many other benefits of Conservative philosophy. We are burdened by a romantic notion of socialism shared by Labour and the Nats (I'm a bigger socialist than you are!)To go beyond that kind of playground politics we need to employ a missionary zeal that demonstates that the future does n't have to be a version of the past. While Ms Goldie is no doubt a hard working and conscientious person she just does n't have the minerals to lead the party on that particular mission.

Gavin Greig

Alex: Regarding the inappropriate David Cameron poster, there's one in the Perth Road in Dundee. Unfortunately I'm unlikely to be passing it with a camera.

Bob

I don't mind Tory if it was truly independent, free thinking and working for the good of Scotland. Just as Scottish Green Party is independent and also support Scottish independence. More voices in a democracy is better. The standard of the three Unionist parties in Halyruid is usually woeful. Who's directing traffic here? Goldie last week was so bad. There's always change. Things need to evolve. Scotland is moving forward and doing some good things. England see this and want the same. Westminster is just outdated and seen as damaged in Scotland.

Iago

Plaid Cymru is just as strong as the SNP. The reason why some people in Wales vote Tory is because the Tory Party are an English party. The areas where the Tories do well are the areas where most English people have moved in with their money; e.g. Pembrokeshire and Monmouthshire. These 'English' areas were the same areas who voted no for devolution. Plaid Cymru is the only party that puts Wales and the people who live within first. Good luck SNP, hope Scotland gets the independence they deserve.

Kittler

Alex: The poster that caught my eye is up here in the North East, so it was not a minor border infringement.
As for a photo, sorry, I am a technophobe, stuff like that is beyond my ken.

Home Rule for England

David Cameron might gain a bit more credibility north of the border if he stopped conflating England and Britain. Scottish voters get very upset when they hear the Tories talking about the NHS, education etc. when in fact these matters are devolved in Scotland and Westminster is only responsible for England!