by Tom Harris
Annabel Goldie is a nice woman. She is intelligent, likeable and formidable in almost perfect proportion. And it is a cruel irony that only in a pre-devolution era could Annabel ever have been considered as a serious candidate for the post of Scotland’s first minister.
In the week when she delivers her swan song as Scottish Tory leader to her party conference, she will have cause to reflect on the past and future of the party she has led since 2005. And to consider whether or not it actually has a future.
And as my own party continues to come to terms with our defeat in our heartlands and whether or not we have a future, we might feel a twinge of sympathy with Annabel.
A feeling common to us both is frustration. There are capable, principled people in both our parties who continue to be denied ministerial office. In our case we hold out hope that the drought might end in four years’ time. For the Tories things are even worse; barring some unprecedented political earthquake or extinction-level event such as a collision with a stray asteroid, they are doomed to be neither the largest party in Holyrood nor the preferred coalition partner of any other party – even the Scottish Lib Dems wouldn’t be seen talking to them publicly. Things in the playground are rough indeed when even the weird kid who eats stuff for money won’t play with you.
The frustration of opposition is part and parcel of democratic politics, but we’re the Scottish Labour Party, for crying out loud. Scotland is where we weighed votes, went the old (and wrong) received wisdom. Annabel’s frustration has the same root: hers is the only party ever to win an actual majority of the popular vote in Scotland (50.1 per cent in 1955, for the anoraks among you). And now?
It’s nearly 20 years since the Tories last won seats in double figures quantity, and even then, only just double figures. And in the subsequent four UK general elections, they have fluctuated wildly between one and zero seats. The only reason they have any kind of presence at all in Scotland is an electoral system (which they opposed) for a devolved parliament (which they also opposed).
Even more frustrating for Annabel must be the realisation that her voters didn’t die or emigrate. Neither were they converted, in the strictest sense. They’re still Tories. It’s just that they… well, they just don’t vote Tory any more. What would be the point? Why vote for a party that stands no chance of either forming a government or, more importantly, of beating the vile socialists?
No, more sensible, surely, to support the one party that stands for whatever you want it to stand for. Of course, the SNP’s support for independence might have been a bit of a barrier to those former adherents of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, but Salmond’s commitment to giving Scots a say in a referendum successfully detoxified his party for many of those of a unionist bent.
And it’s at this point I find I have no comfort to offer Annabel or to her successor, whoever that may be. It’s difficult to see how a Tory resurgence might happen.
Murdo Fraser’s radical (and probably doomed) plan to use a successful leadership bid in order to abolish the party illustrates just how serious the Scottish Tory predicament has become. My best guess, as an outsider, is that their best chance of clawing their way back to relevance would be by electing the able and likeable newcomer Ruth Davidson as leader. Such a move would have the advantage of being radical without the emotional wrench of ditching the Tory brand altogether.
There’s still room in Scotland for a centre-right alternative to the SNP-Labour-left consensus. Its absence has not helped political debate in the last 14 years; it has stilted and warped the political landscape. Annabel has tried valiantly to provide that alternative in the past six years. The responsibility for her failure should not be laid at her door alone, for she has done as much as anyone could, as energetically and enthusiastically as could have been expected from any party leader.
But perhaps I can offer Annabel just a morsel of comfort after all: as she beheld the delegates in the conference hall, as she admitted the task that confronts the Caledonian blue-rinses, she might have reflected wryly that although it’s been nearly a generation since the Scottish Tories won more than ten Westminster seats, it’s been exactly the same length of time since the UK party won a majority, or 40 per cent of voters’ support.
There are still regions of England where Tories are just as much an endangered species as in Scotland. Okay, not much of a comfort, I’ll admit. But as I join my comrades in Scotland to stare into the abyss, you’ll have to forgive me for feeling short of sympathy.
Tom Harris is Labour MP for Glasgow South