The second volume of Charles Moore’s authorised biography of Margaret Thatcher opens with the Falklands War and 1983 General Election.
“Thatcher Gloriana,” he calls it, and of course that election – at which the Conservatives cleaned up as a result of a divided opposition (Mr Corbyn take not) – represented a major turnaround in the Iron Lady’s fortunes.
Across the UK as a whole she secured a majority of 144, and even in Scotland got nearly 30 per cent of the vote and 21 seats, only slightly down on 1979; a remarkable outcome given the events of the previous four years in terms of de-industrialisation and unemployment.
And oh what the Conservatives – currently in conference at Manchester – would give for such statistics today: at May’s General Election the Scottish party managed just half that vote share and a single MP.
Yet despite that outcome, its worst in more than a century, senior party figures, candidates and strategists are remarkably upbeat about their chances in Holyrood elections next May. “Party morale is good,” one insider told me, “we believe we’ll pick up at least a couple more MSPs.”
“I think next May is our big chance,” agreed a senior party figure, “for the first time in a generation the opportunity is there.” By “opportunity” he meant the chance to increase both the Scottish Conservative Party’s share of the vote and its number of MSPs. A few months ago Ruth Davidson even told me her aim was to win “a higher number of MSPs” than ever before, which would mean more than the 18 they secured at the first devolved elections in 1999.
My first instinct on being told this (and since) was “I’ve heard all this before”, indeed prior to every Westminster and Holyrood election since about 2003. Earlier this year, for example, senior figures were certain they’d win two or three more seats in the House of Commons, instead the party went in to the general election with one, and came out with one.
Many Scottish Tories have, for obvious reasons, sustained themselves more on hope than expectation. The success of Ruth Davidson as leader – even opponents acknowledge her effectiveness – serves to underscore the point: even with good and popular leaders (and both Ms Davidson’s predecessors were also effective in different ways) the party has been unable to make any headway.
That’s largely because the Tory brand in Scotland remains a toxic one. Long perceived as “anti-Scottish” by a large proportion of the electorate, recovery has naturally been challenging in a political environment that is increasingly nationalist. Recognising this inconvenient truth, in 2011 Murdo Fraser suggested disbanding the party and starting again. But that ship has sailed.
So, why is everyone so upbeat? One senior figure talks of a “dynamic” that has come together through several different circumstances: Labour under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership has vacated the centre ground (making his party less credible electorally), Ms Davidson is a strong leader (and perceived as holding the First Minister to account), the Holyrood group she leads is changing (7 out of the 15 incumbent MSPs are standing down next year), ushering in an impressive new generation of Scottish Tories (including the constitutional lawyer Adam Tomkins and the advocate Donald Cameron), and in a few months’ time Holyrood will acquire greater powers over tax and welfare.
That, the argument runs, gives the Scottish Tories much greater locus as they’ll be able to make a distinct “offer” in both areas. The party’s Commission for Competitive and Fair Taxation in Scotland reports in January and is expected to be “bold” (i.e. tax cutting), while Ms Davidson will set out her thinking on welfare during the Manchester conference.
Not for nothing does the Prime Minister keep repeating mantra like, as he did the other day, “we now need to hear from the Scottish National Party…how they intend to use those powers”. That said, any “bold” offer on income tax needs to appear both credible and, more to the point, deliverable. On the former voters might judge it unwise in the context of ongoing austerity, while on the latter even if the Scottish Tories do win a few more seats next May, they’ll neither be the largest party nor in a position to coalesce with the SNP.
Party strategists also believe the referendum aftermath together with perceived backsliding from Labour and the Liberal Democrats over a second plebiscite (i.e. their claim to be relaxed about supporters backing independence) enables the Scottish Conservatives to present themselves as, to quote Ms Davidson, “the distinctive voice of the two million Scots who want to stay part of the UK”.
They cite a series of recent council by-elections that, although mostly won by the SNP, revealed that a “significant” number of Labour voters are prepared to give the Conservatives their second-preference votes. Partly this is about pro-Union tactics, i.e. supporting the party most likely to preserve the UK and keep out “the Nats”, but also reflects – the party believes – a feeling that the Corbyn-led Labour Party is not a serious exercise. “People who are anti-Nat,” one senior figure told me, “are much more wound up than ever before.”
There’s a danger, of course, of reading too much into council by-election results (I’ve also heard this many times before). Indeed, in a few local contests just last week the Conservatives even overtook Labour in terms of vote share, although the psephologist Professor John Curtice was careful to check excitable activists who appeared to think this pointed “to the prospect of the Tories overtaking Labour across Scotland as a whole”. Nevertheless, the party believes it might have a chance of winning a forthcoming council by-election in Huntly.
Displacing Labour as the main opposition party would be a major coup for the Conservatives (hey, their Welsh equivalents have been the main opposition in Cardiff Bay since 2011), but it remains unlikely, whatever the numerous woes that continue to attach themselves to Kezia Dugdale et al. Could Labour be acquiring some of the Scottish Tories’ long-standing toxicity? Perhaps, while the apparent willingness of Labour voters to go blue would have been unthinkable just five years ago.
My sources, however, are acutely conscious of getting carried away. “It’s not a given,” said one senior figure. “Not if we don’t do the work – and it needs hard work.” Politics, as has become abundantly clear since 2007, is unpredictable, and even apparently forecastable events, such as the forthcoming in/out EU referendum, could shake the kaleidoscope once again.
“After years of commentators writing us off,” said Ruth Davidson yesterday, “those two campaigns [2014 & 2015] have put a sense of belief back in the Scottish Conservative soul.” She and her colleagues have just over six months to prove the commentariat wrong.
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