Cameron’s Message to the Scottish Tories: Man Up, You Wimps

On the Daily Politics today Andrew Neil asked David Mundell Why are the Scottish Tories so useless? It will not surprise veteran Mundell-watchers that the member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale did not have a great answer to this blunt question. Nevertheless, Mr Neil’s question was, in effect, the theme or premise of the Prime Minister’s speech to the Scottish Tory Conference this morning.

Much of Mr Cameron’s speech was the usual conference boilerplate. All very well and good but not especially meaningful. There was one important passage, however:

I say it’s time we stood up even more strongly for what we believe in. Because when you make a strong argument, you know what? People listen. Not everyone will agree – but those who do will follow your lead.

That’s what we’ve done on the Union.  For years we shied away from the subject, afraid of saying anything, worried it would be taken the wrong way.

Now we’re the ones on the front foot – asking for that referendum, looking for the challenge and though we’re just at the start of this journey, people are giving us a hearing.

We need to show that same fight right across the board, on all the issues that really matter to the Scottish people the economy they work in, the jobs they do, the opportunities their children have, the society they live in.

They deserve a choice on all these things – a choice that includes practical, sensible, centre-right ideas and those, my friends, have got to come from us.

The time for timidity is over. Enough of the hand-wringing and trying to be all things to all people. Let’s be clear about what we stand for – and what we won’t put up with.

That, frankly, is a heartier indictment of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party than you might expect to hear delivered by a Conservative Prime Minister. There is a rich seam of irony to be mined here: the Scottish party is so toxic and so far from power that a cuddly, soft-edged modernisation process won’t do anything to improve its fortunes. Nor does further wheesht-hauding in the hope voters may eventually forget and forgive offer a realistic way forward.

On the contrary, the Scottish Tories must make a virtue of their unpopularity. They must reinvent themseves as the tellers of inconvenient truths, prepared to level with the electorate even if this does not produce any immediate electoral reward. In ay case, self-respect is the first step along the path to wider, popular respect.

Faced with the paradox that Scottish Labour and, in certain respects, the SNP are the guardians of the status quo it falls to the Scottish Tories to be the radical party of reform. The Scottish Consensus is the enemy and the Tories’ mission is to kick against it. Better to be right and all alone than scurry meekly towards the Scottish political centre. In many ways, then, the Scottish Tories future strategy should be very different from that pursued by the Cameroons in England. Since their circumstances are different, there is sense to this and plenty of good reasons to put plenty of clear blue water between the Tories and the other Scottish parties.

There is one rather large impediment to this, however: the constitutional question. The logic of Cameron’s argument points to a Scottish Party that embraces, nay demands, greater fiscal autonomy, not less. The Scottish Tories should be leading the call for Real Home Rule. There are sound philosophical reasons for them to do so and these are strong enough to justify the measure. Happily there is self-interest too since only real responsibilities offer the space in which a right-of-centre revival in Scotland might be thought even semi- feasible.

For as long as the party is defined by last-ditch Unionism, however, a breakthrough seems improbable. Scottish Conservatives have a choice to make: do they prefer a left-wing Scotland securely within the United Kingdom or a more detached Scotland in which right-of-centre politics have a chance to recover? That is, do they consider the good governance of Scotland more or less important than maintaining the present constitutional arrangements that logic and self-interest each demand Conservatives should consider somewhat unsatisfactory?

I think I know how the party will answer that question and I suspect it will pick the wrong answer and this will handicap its ability to reinvent itself as a credible force in Scottish politics. Which is a shame, really. Because the opportunity is there.