Brian Monteith: What is Labour going to do about "Labour for Independence" – that SNP-driven front?

Brian Monteith is a former Tory student chairman and Conservative MSP.  He is now editor of ThinkScotland.org

When does a party political campaign group lose any credibility it might hope to have? There can be many reasons, but in the case of Labour for Independence it is when it appears to live on life support provided by politicians from other parties. This is not just a developing scandal exposing the Machiavellian approach of separatist campaigners at the highest level. It is a warning to all parties about how open they can be to subversion from outside.

Back in April 2012, quite early on in Ruth Davidson’s leadership, the Scottish Conservative Party established Conservative Friends of the Union.  (Not to be mistaken for the group ‘Friends of the Union’ established in 1986 by Ian Gow, John Biggs Davison and a dozen other Tory MPs, whose main focus was the relationship with Northern Ireland).  The Party hoped to reach out beyond its existing support, saying: “It’s not just for our members, our activists, our voters. It’s for anyone in Scotland who wants to help the cause.” In other words, anyone who believed in maintaining the Acts of Union.

Soon, according to the party press statements voters were happily signing up with 50,000 members reported by the Daily Telegraph and £150,000 raised from mostly small donations – although its more transparent Facebook page currently displays only 682 likes.

Brian Monteith: Will the persecution of smokers ever stop under Conservatives?

Brian Monteith is a former Tory student chairman and Conservative MSP.  He is now editor of ThinkScotland.org

In June this year, our Coalition Government agreed a general response to the European Commission’s Tobacco Products Directive (TPD) at a meeting of European health ministers in Luxembourg.  Unfortunately, because the Conservative Public Health Minister, Anna Soubry, avoided the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee, Members of Parliament were denied the opportunity to discuss the directive and the ramifications of its proposals are only now beginning to emerge.

The Luxembourg meeting agreed, among other things, to ban the sale of menthol cigarettes and increase the size of health warnings on all tobacco products throughout the European Union. If passed by MEPs in September, the Tobacco Products Directive will also prohibit smaller pouches of roll your own tobacco and severely restrict the shape and size of cigarette packets.

Whatever one thinks of Europe and its hunger for more and more regulations, this latest assault on the buying and selling of a legal product in Britain is entirely self-inflicted by our own government. Who would have expected a Conservative-led government to take Labour’s public health regulations that restricted the availability or consumption of tobacco and the campaigns that demonised smokers – and seek to make them even more punitive?

Brian Monteith: On the day of her funeral, Margaret Thatcher is alive

Brian Monteith is a former Tory student chairman and Conservative MSP.  He is now editor of ThinkScotland.org

Leadership is something, that you either have in you, or you don’t. To be a good leader of men or women, you need to have a natural empathy with those that will take your commands, and an understanding of the effort and sacrifices being asked of them, no matter how small. You need to be decisive; it instills confidence that you know what you are doing and are not just making it up as you go along - while being open to different approaches and new ideas before you come to your decision strengthens the bond with your charges.

If you have such qualities, and in many regards they can only come in life from witnessing or experiencing disappointments, from facing adversity or overcoming injustice, you will have the opportunity to inspire people to join with you and go beyond what is normally asked of anyone or might be expected of them.

Margaret Thatcher had such leadership qualities in spades, both for the nation and her parliamentary party – but also, we should never forget, for the Conservative Party.  If we take a small step back and consider for a moment those people who were young enough to be her foot soldiers at the time of, first, her leadership of the Party from 1975, and then her premiership from 1979, we can see the impact that she made and conclude that the party owes her a great debt.