David Mundell must resign

On the eve of the Perth Scottish Party Conference a leaked memo that appears on page one of the Daily Record threatens to do terrible damage to the Scottish Party's chances in the Holyrood elections.  The memo - from last June - written by Shadow Scottish Secretary David Mundell includes the following observations:

• There is a "simple lack of thinkers" on the Conservative benches at Holyrood, they don't have the capacity to formulate their own policy independently.
• Annabel Goldie made a reasonable start but has been criticised for "lack of activity and strategic thought", she has "sensitivities" about how she was presented alongside Cameron.
• The next Holyrood manifesto will recycle existing policy positions and that the Scottish party "don't get" the new moderation of the Westminster party.
• The need to replace Scottish Chairman Peter Duncan as an "immediate priority."

David Mundell should resign in order to try and limit the damage that this ill-advised and leaked memo threatens to cause.  If he does not resign it is vital that Mr Cameron sacks him.  It is the only way of killing this story and distancing the Tory leadership from Mr Mundell's criticisms of the Scottish party leadership.

Comments

[CannotSay]

This memo was seen by all the Scottish Conservative MSPs a few months ago and was common knowledge in the Party north of the border.

It is amazing it has taken this long to get out - the timing, on the eve of Conference, is highly suspect.

[Peter Hatchet]

No, he should not resign.

All these points are true. In his capacity as Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland he is perfectly entitled to express his concerns (internally) on the state of the party North of the border.

The fact it has been leaked is not his fault.

I am constantly exasparated by the sheer inepitude and incompetence of Scottish Tories. All these observations are true.

Any resignation would discredit Mundell and his reputation and possibly put his seat at risk at the next election.

[Scottish Tory]

So then, what exactly did Mundell do when he was an MSP that would set him apart from a 'clueless no hoper' label?
What we need right now is LOYALTY not infighting!!

[Boy Blue]

Mundell is an imbecile. If you write memos like these you should make sure that no-one sees them. To allow them to fall in to Press hands is a capital offence.

Peter Hatchett, what tripe you write. 'The fact that it has been leaked is not his fault'. Whose is it then? David Cameron's?

The fact is that Mundell was over-promoted in the first palce. He will be no loss to the Shadow cabinet when Cameron sacks him. If he is lucky, he may avoid deselection in his constituency.

I doubt that the Scottish Tory MSPs, candidates and activists will be quick to forgive him for this appalling act.

[Mark Clarke]

He should not resign. Party leaders get out of touch when people do not give them honest advice. If people stop telling David Cameron their concerns for fear it will get leaked we will end up with a leader without a feel for the Party or the country.

This is also the second time that a private memo to Cameron has leaked (the other being Desmond Swayne). I would suggest that it is not clear therefore whether the leak came from Mundell's office or from Cameron's office.

I should stress have no real knowledge of whether the actual claims regarding the Scottish Party are true or not.

[rasher]

Much as I despise Mundell, he was after all, just as bad if not worse than those he slates, I cant help but feel that what he says is true. The lacklustre msp's and the appalling behaviour and ineptitude of SCCO means that someone from south of the border needs to come up here and sort the mess out for us. The situation is considerably worse than most people would believe.

[Bring back Monteith]

Goldie's credibility as Leader has been undermined and is a lame duck leader. Brian Monteith MSP lost the Whip for much less than that. Mundell should be sacked and lose the Whip at Westminster too. For fresh thinking and a real campaign, bring back Monteith.

[Peter Hatchet]

Boy blue:

Just because you disagree with my point of view, there is no need to be rude. My point is not "tripe", it is perfectly sensible one.

Are you seriously suggesting he leaked his own memo? Why on earth would he do that?

And how else was he to communicate his concerns to the Party leadership? By word-of-mouth? Sometimes memos are the only way of recording, officially, concerns you have.

These are real and genuine concerns about the Scottish Tory Party. He is well qualified to raise them, as his excellent result at the last election demonstrates. His political skill and talents yielded success where others have failed.

This memo is months old before the current campaign started and was obviously to help give the Scottish Conservatives a kick up the backside and sort themselves out.

Someone has deliberately leaked this now to damage him. He should not resign.

[Annabel Herriott]

The obvious conclusion here, is that one should not email anything at all that you dont want leaked! Everyone like DC should havea safe mail box/address then use good old snail mail. It is childs play to hit the forward button, copy, print out and distribute etc. A person up to no good would have to steal the document in the first place, then find a photocopier, then replace said document. Much more complicated you must agree. One might even have to bribe the postman, then that act would surely "get out" before any damage to the party was done.

[Valedictoryan]

Boy Blue is bang on. Having concerns is fine, but it's just plain stupid to unnecessarily to them into writing.

Politicians should assume that their enemies will pass the press anything damaging. If they don’t want it getting to the press a) don’t do it and b) don’t write it down.

As my great-aunt told me: if you can’t be good, be careful.

[HF]

Why did he need to put it on paper?

The only useful audience for such a Note are Francis and DC. Anyone else is an unnecessary risk. If those are the only people he wrote to and it leaked from someone they passed it to then he is not at fault other than maybe he should have censored what he put on paper and instead said verbally the destructive points.

But, since the Note's release has wrecked any chance of co-operation between himself and the present leadership of the Scottish party he has to go.

What he has said looks (from faraway) as largely true. But we are too close to May to change anything.

[rasher]

Peter, I believe he has been damaged goods for some time. He has a very poor reputation here and is known as being nothing more than a complete Cameron sycophant. And yet I'm still obliged to agree with his views on the group if nothing else!

[Highlander]

As an activist I have been working ****** hard in the constituencies and with some ******* good candidates too. If people at the top keep acting so badly and unacceptably - both through criticisms, infighting and leakings - all this work will be meaningless and the chance of getting people to continue with equivilent efforts in the lead up to the general election and beyond will be nigh on impossible.

[William Norton]

Presumably, with Mundell gone (on the basis he's damaged goods), we bring back James Gray as Shadow Scottish Secretary?

[Matt Wright]

I thought most switched on people realised years ago that you don't send e-mails on issues ike this but discuss them one to one in private.

Matt

[Max]

A ludicrously over the top response from ConservativeHome. Perhaps they don’t realise that outwith the Tory-hating Daily Record this has had no media coverage in Scotland at all.

Still by calling on him to resign you’ll have done your bit to whip up this story. On the eve of conference too.

Cheers Tim.

[Andrew Woodman]

I think sacking him be harsh in the extreme. Has he actually said anything which doesn't have a ring of truth about it? You could question putting pen to paper, but all he's done is give an opinion on the state of the party in Scotland which opinion polls seem to comfirm.

[Peter Hatchet]

Andrew, Max and Mark Clarke are right.

Granted, caution is needed when sending memos, particularly by email, but - as Mark says - our party needs to communicate. To sack him for this is incredibly harsh.

If we all had to resign for something we'd been involved in that had caused some embarassment somewhere down the line, 99% of us would be out of a job.

Our opponents are the ones always demanding we resign for this and that. We shouldn't play into their hands.

[Boy Blue]

Peter Hatchett,

You are simply trying to deflect blame from Mundell. This was a (presumably) confidential memo, which would patently cause serious trouble in the wrong hands. Even if there is an argument for consigning it to paper, it is the responsibility of the author to ensure it stays confidential.

So who leaked it? David Cameron? Or someone Mundell foolishly gave a copy to? If the latter, then he has to take the rap.

Politcis and senior office in it are a harsh world. If you can't take the heat, stay out of the kitchen.

As for Mundell's 'political skills and talents'...... You're having a laugh, surely? he was a lightweight MSP and is the lightestweight Shadow Cabinet member.

[TheBroons]

He should be promoted not sacked. thank god
someone is telling Cameron the truth about the Scottish party. Its also obvious who leaked this. Has Mundell recently dispenced with the services of any staffers? His press officer perhaps?

By the way the Record makes the Mirror look like a Tory paper - they'll print any anti tory rubbish.

[Chevalier de la Foi]

Agree with Max. ConHome's call for Mundell's resignation is hysterical. Another nail in the coffin of the credibility of this site.

[rasher]

"Has Mundell recently dispenced with the services of any staffers? His press officer perhaps? "

Nice to see the finger pointing has started already!

[kingbongo]

I know nothing of Scottish tory politics but I do know the party in Wales is on the up and doing very well - there is clearly something very wrong with the organisation and leadership of the party in Scotland - sounds like Mundell was just pointing that out - painful but surely the first step in getting things right for the future.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Sacking him does sound harsh and, politically, was very silly of you, Ed, to give oxygen to this story at this particular moment in time. The best hope for the Scottish Conservatives to recapture lost credibility would be for them to say that they will support the SNP's plan for a referendum on Scotland being in the Union and allow a free vote for Conservatives.

All that said, I don't think Cameron will be losing much sleep tonight...

[Peter Hatchet]

I see Iain Dale has also condemned this article as; "Utter rubbish, and a very unhelpful suggestion" - quite so.

Boy Blue, I am not "deflecting blame" - I do not blame him at all. He also achieved a 8% swing in 2005 and a 11% increase in his share of vote - he clearly is a talented individual. This is a very petty offence to destroy a mans career - and I question if it was his fault at all. The memo was written in June, for heavens sake.

Some people on this site think it's a crime *period* to be a firm supporter of Cameron and use every available opportunity to undermine or attack him.

This is not helped at times by the editoral line which, whilst I have huge respect for Tim and his team, is not as neutral as it should be.

[Max]

Perhaps it should also be bourn in mind that David Mundell has done more than most to help the party North of the Border. The South of Scotland is the only part of the country where we have made real progress since 1997.

In 2003 he increased his vote by around 10% in Dumfries. Better than any other Tory candidate. He then went on to win DCT and has helped rebuild our local government base in Dumfries and Galloway as well.

Clearly – according to ConHome – this is not the type of person we want on the front bench of the Tory party.

To witness ConHome – acting in league with a Mirror-group Tory-hating newspaper – is quite frankly sickening.

[Scotty]

"To allow them to fall in to Press hands is a capital offence."

So this has been leaked to the Daily Record and gets front-page treatment in the run up to the May elections?

If anyone has been paying real attention to what is going on in the Scottish elections and the Conservative party here over the last few years, they might join up a few dots and get the right answers!!
Firstly the Daily Record is the Scottish equivalent of the Daily Mirror Labour mouth piece.
Labour are in a mess and could be facing a real drubbing in the upcoming elections from all sides. Expect the party in 2nd place in Labour area's to improve their position.
The campaign is getting very negative and nasty already and is not for the faint hearted.

Now I contend that the unpopularity of the Labour/Libdem administration at Holyrood will benefit the SNP greatly, but I also think that the conservatives will improve their position if we pull together and concentrate our guns on the opposition.

There has been a real effort to undermine Annabel Goldie as the leader from within the party, and I don't think that it was an accident of timing that David Cameron and his shadow cabinet almost had their trip to Scotland undermined by criticism of the Holyrood team from a prospective candidate.
I notice that this email was sent 11 months ago and I would say that some of the criticisms in it have been acted upon, it is then odd that it should now be leaked to the Record at this time.
Sadly while South of the Border and in Wales we seem to have got our act together, up here in Scotland we are still too fond of "p*ssing inside the tent" while factions vie for control of the agenda even at the expense of the May election results.
I agree with Peter Hatchet's comments regarding David Mundell @ 09:53
I would have been concerned if the points highlighted by Mundell had been ignored but I think that they have been acted upon and remain sceptical about the timing of this leak.
Remember a few weeks ago when Newsnight failed to lead on the CforH story, instead they chose to go on a story which was drawn to their attention months after the event!!!

[Tam Large]

This was a memo, not a press release... If Mr Mundell thought they were clueless surely he ought to say so in a private communication, instead of the old politician-hush-it-up technique. Now he is being attacked because he told the truth and tried to do something about it. Attacking him is just more of the control-freakery which is infecting the Conservative Party. The guilty party in this episode is whoever leaked it - no doubt maliciously. Perhaps Mr Mundell is right and they are clueless...

[rasher]

Max, being a hard working local MP is one thing, but being fit for high political office is another. I would suggest that Mundell is the former, but not the latter.

Isnt it strange that when one MSP e-mails a privately held view to a newspaper editor, he is then castigated and thrown out of the tory group in Holyrood (Brian Monteith), yet when Mundell has his privately held views leaked no-one bats an eyelid.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Crikey! I agree with Tam large! It looks like all this is backfiring on you, Mr. Ed.

[Ted]

Agree with Max and similar posters.

No he shouldn't resign - that wouldn't have any impact beyond stoking up more "Scots Tory splits" headlines. It wouldn't change his opinions nor the veracity or otherwise of them. Best defence in these situations is no comment, no reaction.

Concerned that there may be a number of other memo's to DC from his shadow cabinet & advisors that were obtained last year and are being dolled out by Labour to friendly jounalists as opportunity arises.

[northtory]

The calls for Mundell to resign are, as has been repeatedly stated, nothing more than hysterical nonsense.

However, Max's comments that Mundell has "done more than most to help the party North of the border" are similarly ridiculous. Mundell has built himself a powerbase in Scotland, largely thru his unique position as a conservative MP in Scotland, and has used this to support cronies and yes men, while putting barriers in the way of those who really want change and who want to see our party do well.

He was part of that MSP group for 6 years and was hardly one of its top performers so it's all pretty hypocritical. He also supported Mary Scanlon's efforts to get back into the group despite her being sacked from the health brief becuase of gaffes.

He's definitely a "do as i say not a i do man". A lot of what he says is right but it applies to him to.

[Jonathan M Scott]

At least someone has had the honesty to state what has been obvious for a long time!

[Surrey Boy]

David Mundell is one of the weakest of the new intake of Tory MPs. The party a big mistake in making his Shad Sec for Scotland. It was a token gesture because he is a Scot without considering his skills (or lack of them). Why don't we actually give this job to someone bright who is not currently on the front bench?

[Scotty]

"Still by calling on him to resign you’ll have done your bit to whip up this story. On the eve of conference too."
Max @ 10:18 has highlighted the reason why I think this was leaked now. Just remember the briefing that came from within the party which did so much damage to IDS before his last conference, it set the agenda for the media coverage
If I was not so angry about yet another well timed intervention to damage the election campaign I might find that ironic!

[Editor]

I stand by my call for David Mundell to go. As one Scottish MSP told me this morning - this memo will be used as election literature by opponents. It was very foolish to commit these thoughts to paper. If David Mundell goes now it will be much easier for the party leadership to distance itself from the sentiments of the letter. Otherwise this will be a story that runs and runs.

[Tartan Tory]

I agree with all the other posters who think that ConHome has gone completely OTT against Mundell. The crass editorialising and demands for resignation feel like a cynical Daily Express-style 'let's whip up outrage for its own sake' approach.

Mundell was certainly naive to put his thoughts to paper but some malicious creature has held back the memo to be released at the most sensitive time possible.

[thatcherite]

Iain "Giz a seat" Dale is supporting Mundell. I look forward to a spirited debate on 18 Tory Street tonight.

[rasher]

Good point Surrey Boy, but it could equally be argued that now we have the Scottish Parliament, we dont need a Secretary of State for Scotland any more. Now could be a good time to dispense with the role altogether and kill two birds with one stone. I back Mundell's view of the group, but equally feel he is completely out of his depth and nothing short of spoilt bully

[Henry]

At least the Scots HAVE Tories AND a Scottish Conservative Party.

What does that say about the Tories views of England? Heaven forbid any of them should even be allowed to call themselves English and not be hauled up before the race commission!!

[Jennifer Wells]

If Mundell stays in his job it will look like the London party backs the views of his memo

That could be fatal to our chances in May's elections.

[LordHawHaw]

Ed your hypocracy is breath taking. You publish articles attacking Cameron on a daily basis and even sold one of your "membership polls" to The Independent last year before the UK conference at the most damaging time possible. Labour activists use pieces from this site on leafets etc. to campaign against the Party yet you continue to provide them with material and then have the cheek to call for Mundell to resign. HAVE YOU NO SHAME!

[CCHQ Spy]

What Mundell wrote was largely right but so close to an election Annabel Goldie needs to be publicly backed by David Cameron and the best way of sending that message of support is for Mundell to resign for being so stupid to write such sensitive things down. WHAT AN IDIOT HE IS!

[Editor]

For the record, LordHawHaw, I did not sell my poll to The Independent. It was given to them free of charge.

If you saw yesterday's Guardian Comment is Free you will know that I'm not relentlessly anti-Cameron.

[thatcherite]

Hang Lord Haw Haw! Traitor!

[Mike Clarke]

I agree with Tam Large too, which must mean that I agree with (shock! horror!) Justin Hinchcliffe. I think I'll go and have a lie down!

[thatcherite]

Cheryl Gillan seems to be doing a good job in Wales. Give her the Scottish job too!

Other alternatives are Scottish MPs who have English seats - Liam Fox (in addition to his defence portfolio) and Eleanor Laing (who did the job before I think).

[Deputy Editor]

Looking at the IP addresses of the critical commenters above reveals that a number of them are using the same computer...

[Jennifer Wells]

The story has gone on to the BBC website:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/6429525.stm

I predict it will grow throughout the day and not because this website drew attention to it.

People do read the Daily Record in Scotland you know!!

They had the memo as an exclusive and it was bound to be taken up by others.

[Justin Hinchcliffe]

Lie down, Mike, lie down. Put an abulance on standby!