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Friday 10 February 2012

The Most Useless Political Party in Europe

Sunday, 5th September 2010

This is a subject that one could - and may! - return to frequently. David Cameron, not unreasonably, seems to have decided that there's no point to the Scottish Tories at all. This is not a great surprise given that the Scottish Tories have declined to make any meaningful, let alone sensible, case for themselves.

According to Hamish Macdonell - a reliable reporter - Cameron has had enough of his enfeebled North Britain platoon. By her own admission, Aunt Annabel Goldie hasn't spoken to the Prime Minister since the election. And what would they have to talk about anyway? The sorry truth is that the Scottish Conservative & Unionist party is perhaps the most useless political party in western europe.

You have to remember, alas, that New Labour's reforms weren't just too daring for the lumpen Scottish Labour party (that was to be expected) they were also too daring for the Scottish Conservatives. No wonder Cameron's ideas are too bold for these timorous beasties.

The most successful political parties are interested in ideas and power; the nastiest only care about power. The Scottish Tories are unusual in pretending to be a serious party while being utterly uninterested in either ideas or power.

Since the Tories have, at Holyrood anyway, decided they won't treat with anyone else (admittedly, this feeling is reciprocated) and since they've not had a good idea in at least a decade is it really any wonder that they fail to make an impact? What is the point of them?

If they're not interested in power - and that's fine! - they should at least be in the vanguard of the ideas battle. But they're not. In non-hopeless cases I tend to think it's a bad idea to retreat to ideological first principles. But the Scottish Tories are that rare hopeless exception.

The wonder of the Tory predicament in Scotland is not that they win so few votes but that they receive so many.

Filed under: Cameron (208 more articles) , Scotland (457 more articles) , Tories (265 more articles)

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David Milne

September 5th, 2010 5:02am Report this comment

The situation in Scotland really is desperate. Both the traditional and progressive wings of the Conservative party here are ill-served by the leadership in Holyrood. I would liken it to the situation that would have arisen if Edward Heath or William Whitelaw had remained in charge of the party after 1975 and had accepted the doctrine of managed decline and the inevitable left-wing hegemony that would follow. Imagine the UK after an ongoing Foot/Kinnock/Brown premiership opposed by a succession of mediocrities and you have a pretty good idea of where Scotland is now.

There are plenty of people in Scotland who would vote for a centre-right, small government champion of entrepreneurs and small businesses. I read this article in the hope that it would shed some light as to how this could be achieved. Mr. Massie has laid out all too clearly some of the problems we face in Scotland. The rot goes even deeper than has been suggested in the article, I'm afraid. For example, to describe local party organisation and grass roots activism as moribund would be generous. It truly is pathetic.

The whole movement needs to be built again, from scratch, and it's going to take a long, long time. The tragedy is that the process should have begun before 1997.

HairyNoddy

September 5th, 2010 10:26am Report this comment

I can't see the Scots going for the Tories in any great numbers until they discover for themselves what a flawed ideology Socialism is.

I say let them make this discovery at their own expense. Full speed ahead for full Scottish independence!

Malcolm Redfellow

September 5th, 2010 1:07pm Report this comment

Much of what Hamish Macdonell says there and what Alex Massie says here applies equally to the moribund Ulster Unionist Party, kept breathing only by D'Hondt and the passing interest of D.Cameron.

David Bouvier

September 5th, 2010 8:17pm Report this comment

I have no brief for the scottish conservatives, but lets start with the facts.

At the last GE they polled 16.7% of the vote, which was 3.2% behind the SNP and being the 2nd largest voteshare, and only 2.2% behind the LibDems.

With coalition it is not unrealistic to imagine they will push the LDs to 4th place.

Now the diffuse spread of Conservative votes across constituencies leading to few if any seats (1/59th of the seats, for 10/59th of the votes) limits their electoral success but don't do them down too much.

And without local councillors and MPs to sustain the local party organisation it is terrifically hard to organise.

So Alex - enlighten us - what is your programme for Scotland to push them forwards... set it out.

Craig Strachan

September 5th, 2010 11:39pm Report this comment

I'm trying to think of the good idea they had a decade ago...

Yam Yam

September 6th, 2010 8:20am Report this comment

Conservatism will never triumph north of the border until David Cameron takes the decision to prise Scottish lips from off the English taxpayers' teat once and for all.

Only then will economic reality kick in and the true price of Scotland's addiction to state socialism become obvious. Only then will an authentic Scottish voice for free markets and a smaller state be heard.

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