Lead article: Disunited kingdom

David Cameron visited Scotland only once during the battle for its parliament’s elections.

David Cameron visited Scotland only once during the battle for its parliament’s elections. Hadrian’s Wall is becoming a forbidding obstacle for the Conservatives: a boundary with an unfamiliar, inhospitable land redeemed only by opportunities for deer stalking and trout fishing. Ed Miliband ventured north a fortnight ago, in an attempt to save Labour’s Scottish campaign — but as The Spectator went to press it seemed that this, too, had proved fruitless. The Scottish Nationalist leader, Alex Salmond, has found to his delight that his opposition has crumbled.

It is understandable that Cameron and Miliband have little interest in what passes for politics in the Scottish Parliament. It is a tortuous topic for Scots. But devolution has created an atmosphere in which Scotland is spoken of as a foreign country — one that increasingly baffles Conservatives, who have not managed to win more than one seat there for 19 years.