Dear All
Unless you are totally brain dead, it can’t have escaped your notice that the ‘Scottish’ Tories are a dead party.
And have been since Margaret Thatcher.
Only now has someone within the Tory ranks had the courage to stand up and say it publicly.
Murdo Fraser was to disband the Scottish Tory Party.
Why?
Because as a brand, it is so toxic and unsellable, it can’t go anywhere and go anything.
Fraser is also standing funny enough as to be the next leader of the Scottish Tories seeking a mandate to scrap the party and start again.
But a new name and identity isn’t enough, the people will still be the same and the policies will still be the same.
It will all be for nought if the Scottish Tories don’t redesign what conservatism is and means.
It is radical to scrap the party but the radicalisation must extent into policy areas that traditionally the left have occupied.
We are talking help the poor here.
The move by Murdo Fraser is said to have flushed out carpetbagger Ruth Davidson who has also decided to run on a ticket of more of the same.
Talk about a lack of ambition.
Party grandee Sir Malcolm Rifkind said it was refreshing and deserved serious consideration.
Lord Sanderson on the other hand said it was "strange" and could play into the SNP’s hands.
Fraser, the MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife, said it was time for a "new, progressive, centre-right party with a distinct Scottish identity".
This in layman’s terms means dropping the word ‘unionist’ for a starter for ten.
He wants the new party to be a credible force.
So; Fraser, who will formally launch his campaign today under the slogan "A new party for Scotland".
To be successful, a party needs to have a mix of both right wing and left wing policies that connect with people across the board.
Fraser said:
"It’s time we launched a new, progressive, centre-right party with a distinct Scottish identity, one that would have a partnership with the UK Conservative Party, and in other respects be operationally independent. I think that would be much more attractive to many people."
He added:
"Let us remember that our most successful electoral period as a party came before 1965. We were not the Conservative Party then. We were a party which had a distinct Scottish identity."
Scotland’s only Tory MP, David Mundell, said changing the party’s name was a "simplistic approach" to the issues confronting it.
He added:
"I will take a very great deal of convincing that by simply having a separate party in Scotland that will resolve the electoral issues that we face."
Mundell seemly doesn’t understand that the complicated approached has bombed at every election in living memory.
How many times do you have to be slapped across the face before you get the idea to duck?
SNP MSP Stewart Maxwell said:
"After well over a decade in Scottish political oblivion, the Scottish Tory Party has finally called in the receivers. The long, slow death of the Scottish Tories now looks like being a sudden demise."
Shadow Scottish Secretary Ann McKechin said:
"Murdo Fraser’s scheme is doomed to fail because it is his hard-line and right-wing policies that alienates people, not his party’s internal workings."
And if you want elected then policies need revamped, some people say politics is like a circle, travel far enough and you will bump into your opponents.
As for carpetbagger Ruth Davidson, she is a follower, not a leader of men.
Typically she doesn’t have the brains to recognise the writing on the wall; her candidacy won’t be going anywhere.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
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