Blair Murray: The "Bavarian option" can address the Scottish Tories' malaise

Blair Murray is a teacher and Conservative party activist based in London, although he hails from Scotland, where he has campaigned in many an election. 

Lord Sanderson’s review into the revival of the Scottish Conservatives made for uncomfortable reading. It identified some of the key challenges facing the Scottish Conservatives, including faulty internal structures, confused policy development, falling membership and a lack of links to Scotland’s business community. It was established in response to the party’s woeful performance in this year’s general election, in which only one Scottish Conservative MP, yet again, was elected.

As a Scot currently living in London, the continued lack of success of the Scottish Conservatives is deeply troubling. What we must first accept is that whatever has been tried over the last decade, it has not worked. The figures are stark. The Conservatives in Scotland won a smaller proportion of the vote in 2010 than in the electoral annihilation of 1997. Opinion polls suggest we are unlikely to make much progress at next year's Scottish Parliamentary elections. Our performance compares especially poorly when compared to the Welsh Tories, who won 27.1% of the Welsh vote this year, up from 19.6% in 1997.

There have been some successes. John Lamont bucked the trend in the 2007 Scottish Parliamentary election by winning the Roxburgh and Berwickshire seat with a 9% swing from the Lib Dems. The Conservatives have staged something of a recovery in rural south Scotland, particularly in Borders and Dumfries and Galloway. Winning four constituencies in 2007 was some comfort, although the party nevertheless lost support overall in that election.

To blame the current travails on the Scottish leadership is to miss the point. Lord Sanderson was correct in that respect. The history of the Conservative Party in Scotland is one of long and slow decline: the easy explanation is to assume that Scots are intrinsically Left-wing supporters of unreformed welfarism, therefore creating hostile territory for any Right-leaning political movement. However, even if that were the case - and the evidence on that is far from conclusive - other European countries which could be classed as predominantly 'social democratic' nevertheless have vibrant conservative parties. In Sweden the Moderates lead a government of the centre-Right. Despite Sweden traditionally being manna from Polly Toynbee's heaven, the centre-Right has always polled better than the Scottish Conservatives' recent performance. All Western European democracies, regardless of where their political centre-ground is held to be, have parties of the Right far more successful than the Scottish Conservatives.

Blair Murray: David Cameron will book a place in history if he successfully removes power from the whips and allows MPs to be more independent-minded

Blair Murray is a teacher and Conservative party activist, with a particular interest in constitutional and parliamentary reform.

The current constitutional crisis has thrown our political system into a state of flux. Commentators vent at the dark days of the House of Commons and posit that we may be experiencing an irrevocable breakdown of trust and respect. The days of MPs motivated by duty, service and the common good appear to be over. Giants have been replaced by pygmies. What happened to our parliament, erstwhile that most august of institutions?

As recently as the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s there were many men and women of distinction on both sides of the Commons. On the Conservative side were Macmillan, Maudling, Macleod, Powell, Heath, Butler and Hogg amongst others; for Labour there were the likes of Wilson, Gaitskell, Castle, Healey, Foot, Benn and Callaghan. While these individuals were impressive characters in their own right, they also enjoyed a fierce streak of independence which ensured that their opinions actually mattered.

The rot began in the 1980s, when the professionalisation of politics accelerated. The traditional elite withered to be replaced by a new class of politician. Deference also died; parliament faded. Sir Geoffrey Howe’s resignation speech may have destroyed Mrs Thatcher’s premiership, but in truth it was the last gasp of an age when parliament was relevant. That Tony Blair did not even trouble himself to be present for Robin Cook’s resignation exposed the sad state into which our parliament had slipped.