Aunt Annabel Departs But the Tories Can Live Again

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 brace of seats but compared to  shipwrecked Labour, far less the poor Liberal Democrats, they emerged from the nationalist storm in more or less seaworthy condition.

Moreover, the SNP’s majority is a clarfiying moment for the Tories. For the first time since home rule they are in a position to behave like a proper opposition party. When Labour and the Lib Dems shared power the Tories were too cowed, too timorous, to oppose them properly. They were still living in their Age of Apology. Later, after 2007, the Tories took the opportunity to trade support for SNP budgets for modest improvements or steps towards achieving Tory goals. It was an occasional alliance of convenience that, gradually, edged the Conservatives back into the mainstream. At Holyrood, at least.

Clearly that could have continued to be the case had Salmond won a smaller victory. The SNP majority changes everything and makes life simpler for the new Tory leader (whomever that may be). John McTernan makes a number of good points here but above all when he implies that the Tory campaign during this election points to a future in which the Conservatives are actually the modernising, radical alternative to the SNP:

[Annabel] told the public the truth. She said that students should make some contribution to the cost of their education – because higher education cannot be free, mass and high-quality. She said more choice for patients would produce better health care. And that diversity in schools and choice for parents and pupils would raise standards. She was right, but she was ignored.

And this:

The Tories need a new approach to cities – in Scotland, but also across the UK. Scottish Tories developed an attractive policy on renewal for Scotland’s town centres. If they extend that to cities and add in crime and housing policy they will have an intellectual base for fighting back. In urban areas. And they should focus particularly on the most overlooked of voters – the suburban households.

Finally, taxation. There is a commonly held myth that voters in Scotland are more collectivist, and thus more willing – indeed eager – to pay more tax. The unspoken dimension of the debate about more powers for the Scottish Parliament is that Scots will be willing to pay higher taxes. Not true now, and in 2015 after four years of squeezed living standards the idea looks preposterous. Yet that is precisely when the SNP plan to hike income tax by 5p when they introduce local income tax. A properly positioned Tory party could exploit the anger of Scotland’s “squeezed middle”.

I think this is wise. The scale of Salmond’s triumph obscures the fact that this may prove to be as good as it gets for the SNP. Voters did not mind a minority ministry and were, on the whole, happy to forgive or excuse its failings. They will not, I suspect, be quite so charitable towards a majority SNP government. And with Labour in disarrary and the Lib Dems irrelevant, there is, jings, space for the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party to be heard.

Granted, that means finding accomplished media-performers to sell a common-sense, tell-it-like-it-is approach to opposition (Ruth Davidson is one obvious “new voice” to play a role here) and granted too some parts of the press will still be reluctant to listen to the Tories. Nonetheless, there is an opportunity here.  

Crucially, however, the Tories must not be fixated by the constitution to the exclusion of all else. Indeed, I think they should be happy to embrace a referendum provided it is a simple Yes/No plebiscite, not one offering a third “devo-max” option. Law and order and taxation; education and public sector reform are just as important as the constitution and the Tories should concentrate on these areas, “talking up” what may be achieved within the existing constitutional arragements and asking why the SNP still cling in so many areas to policy views that date from Labour’s pre-Blair era. “Scotland can do better than that” should be a vital part of the Tory message, appealling to the Scottish equivalents of the suburban voters in England who voted for Margaret Thatcher, Tony Blair and David Cameron.

That might not win the Tories a majority but they need to be in the business of winning intellectual, conceptual arguments that slowly shift the balance of Scottish politics away from a left-wing consensus that is not as wide or as deep as headline election results have tended to suggest.