Peter Blair: We must always be the Conservative and Unionist Party

Peter Blair was brought up in Glasgow and has served on the committees of the St Andrews and Cambridge Universities' Conservative Associations. He currently lives and works in Hertfordshire.

David Cameron has told us that he came into politics because he loves this country. Like him, I love this country, like him I believe that this country is, and always must be an equal Union, England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. I will not give up or give in by dismissing Scottish Conservatives; I cannot back the Conservative Home's General Election Review's idea of abandoning the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party.

It took me until my twentieth year to be honest with myself and my values and join the Conservative and Unionist Party. The word 'Tory' was anathema; the concept of voting Tory was beyond the pale. Yet Conservative policies are not only necessary, but popular all over the country until they are mentioned to be Conservative.

The pre-1965 party name may have made sense for that time, but any idea that a name change could alter Scotland's perceptions is, at best, an assertion; at worst it is a piece of woolly thinking which would make Conservatism completely irrelevant in Scotland for the foreseeable future. Even the names ('Freedom Party… Reform Party') which Conservative Home suggests sound like the kind of party which loses to even the Monster Raving Looney Party or, more ridiculously, the Scottish Socialists.

In Scotland, the 'nasty party' fallacy has its claws dug in, perhaps more deeply than in the rest of the Union. Yet both David Cameron and Iain Duncan Smith have made Scotland a priority; the wonderful work of IDS was inspired by some of the poorest parts of Glasgow. This focus is both practical and right: we are not the party of sectional or regional faction; we should and, hopefully, will govern for the whole Union: Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and England. Yet this could fail if we let the legitimate concerns of many English MPs and Englishmen push away, rather than support, the Scottish section of our Party.