Alex Massie Alex Massie

The painful truth for Ruth

No matter how well the Scottish Conservative leader is regarded, her party is still toxic north of the border

Minority sects are often more interesting, and more colourful, than their more popular rivals. That must explain why the Scottish Tories continue to be the subject of so much fascination. Barely a month passes without someone, somewhere, asking if this — at long last — is the moment for a Scottish Tory revival. Spoiler alert: it never is.

Logic says that at this year’s Scottish parliament elections, things should be different. It is generally agreed that Ruth Davidson, the party leader in Scotland, had a ‘good independence referendum’; generally agreed, too, that after Nicola Sturgeon, she might be the most impressive politician in Scotland. This might be reckoned a low bar to clear; it remains the case that Davidson is the first Tory in a generation who can even think of clearing it. Everyone loves Ruth; very few people will vote for her. This has consequences, not least since the Union needs a Tory revival in Scotland (and a Labour revival in England).

In theory, the votes are there for Davidson. Nearly 700,000 Scots based their ‘no’ vote in the referendum on their attachment to the Union. They might have had concerns about unanswered economic questions too, but their primary motivation was their sense of themselves as being British as well as Scottish. Most of them would have voted ‘no’ even if they believed the SNP’s promise of jam and unicorns for all. These, then, are the unionist ultras upon whom Davidson is relying in May. If they won’t vote Tory, who will?

Anecdotally, some of them will. Labour’s commitment to the Union is palpably weakening and there are some former Labour voters who are now prepared to back the last remaining unimpeachably unionist party. Nevertheless, the electoral mathematics are unforgiving: the SNP continues to poll at 50 per cent and a divided unionist opposition is likely to be routed on polling day.

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