The lesser of two evils

Naturally, nothing can be published until I am selected, and preferably elected. But it would be a big mistake to surmise that my silence indicates any failure of vigilance.

Meanwhile, I am on the campaign trail, in the civilised manner that Conservatives keep up even into the age of spin. My first step was to phone the presidentess of an association where I fancy standing and invite her to a discreet lunch - so discreet that I had omitted even to mention its purpose. Not until the pheasant was cleared away did I coyly bring the conversation round to my interest in the Scottish Parliament.

She started in surprise: ''They'll never have you.''

''As a matter of fact I'm already on the candidates' list,'' said I.

This brought a puzzled frown. ''In that case, you'll just have to clean up your act. Get rid of that beard. Don't wear off-the-peg suits. Some double-breasted bespoke tailoring might work wonders.''

''They are quite expensive off-the-peg suits,'' I protested.

''Well, don't sleep in them,'' she snapped, ''and lay off the Chardonnay a bit.''

''I'm sorry you said that because I was about to order another bottle of this exquisite Meursault.''

''Oh, all right, then.''

The beard is still there but the suits have been ordered, and the campaign is gearing up. Recently, I addressed my first meeting of a Tory association since the General Election of 1983, that having marked the summit (good second in East Lothian) of my political achievement to date.

Scottish Conservatives have, to put it mildly, seen a lot since, so it is interesting to plumb what they have learned from their experiences. Of course, some are still fighting old battles. But others accept that old battles were finally lost on May 1 and September 11 last year. The point now is to do what we can with a situation which is not of our making, but which might yet be turned to advantage.

To my surprise, the bit in my speech that aroused the most interest was when I mentioned the piquant possibility of Tories holding the balance of power at Holyrood, if neither Labour and its LibDem poodles nor Nats on their own won a working majority.

I stated no preference about how Conservatives should then conduct themselves. It was in the discussion afterwards that the chairman pressed the hypothetical question on his activists. A Scottish Government had to be formed and it fell to the Tories to choose who should form it. As often in politics there was only a choice of evils: no evasion could be tolerated. The meeting voted two-to-one for coalition with the Nats.

This happened somewhere in the West of Scotland and perhaps in another region of the country, where partisan pressures and rivalries are different, the result might have been opposite. But I think as an expression of opinion at the Conservative grassroots it was not insignificant.

I say so because the other option is the one which has up to now been touted from on high in the Tory party. That is, in those hypothetical circumstances, the Conservative MSPs would be directed into a grand Unionist coalition with Labour and LibDems on the grounds that, at all costs, the Nats must be kept out.

Nowadays in the party we are supposed to be taking notice of the grassroots, and it seems to me that at that level there may be more objection to the official strategy than the big-wigs imagine. To most Tories, Labour remains the real enemy.

From a Scottish perspective, Labour forms a corrupt, pervasive political establishment which has to be toppled before anything changes for the better. From a British perspective, the overriding priority is to get a Conservative Government back. Devolution is Labour's policy and devolution must be made a thorn in Labour's flesh: will that best be done by having Labour in or out of office in Edinburgh?

To be sure, coalition with Nats is fraught with difficulty - who since 1997 expects Scottish politics to be easy for Tories? Yet they should have no great problem with one condition of it, a referendum on independence, provided they were completely free to campaign against independence.

I believe such a referendum would have the virtue of clearing the air, by making explicit that there will be no more change in Scotland's constitutional status for the foreseeable future. This is because I assume the vote would

follow every single opinion poll in living memory and affirm the Union by a huge majority. It would leave the Nats in a Quebecois situation, in office though defeated on their main policy. But that would be their problem: could not happen to a nicer lot of chaps.

This coalition would cause a further problem for Nats because their conference once passed a resolution forbidding them ever to dirty their hands in any way with Tories. No doubt it was passed against the nasty English Tories of old, long before the cuddly new Scottish Tories arrived on the scene.

But if the Nats stuck to it, it would only confirm what they have been taunted with: that they are in essence a party of opposition, unfit for power because unwilling to strike the bargains that the democratic exercise of power entails.

So on reflection, I am glad the meeting I addressed voted the way it did: in effect, that Nats may be bad, but Labour is worse. It is certainly my view, and one I shall press in the year ahead.