Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

You know what jumps out at me from the report on the Scottish Tories? It's not the leadership stuff, intriguing though that is.

It's not the excoriating tone: the many "moribund" local associations; the declining membership; the "lack of clarity" over who's in charge; the members "disenfranchised" when it comes to policy formulation.

It's a little section where they admit they are moving beyond their strict remit which was to report on the state of the party, with suggested remedies.

At the close of the section on the means of devising policy, they turn to a policy issue itself: fiscal devolution.

Tory-led government

Lord Sanderson's team note that they "cannot ignore the quantity of submissions on whether or not Scotland should have greater fiscal accountability."

This matter, they note further, is of "enormous significance to the future of Scotland" and merits widespread debate within the Scottish Tories and the UK party: which debate they duly recommend.

Fascinating - especially with the Calman Commission proposals due to be turned into a Bill next week by the Conservative-led UK Government.

The Tories in Scotland did not decline solely because of their antipathy to self-government.

But it damaged them: it placed them outwith what swiftly became the new conventional wisdom.
Parties of the Right commonly attach themselves to a patriotic appeal.

Enhanced devolution

In Scotland, the Tories picked the "wrong" patriotism for their electoral prospects. They were brandishing the Union flag while Scotland was clutching the Saltire.

It was, arguably, an honourable decision - they genuinely disliked and distrusted devolution. But it was disastrous for their electoral hopes.

Tories duly turned to devolution, with varying degrees of conviction - and hoped that Scots would duly return to them. That has not - yet - happened.

It could therefore be argued that the next logical step is for the Tories to back enhanced devolution - within which they could propose a more substantive Right of centre offer.

If, for example, Scotland had substantial fiscal autonomy then, perhaps, it would be credible for a party to argue for a low tax, low spending economy.

Talk is folly

Such an approach is harder to sustain when there are very few economic levers to pull.

There are Scots Tories who think that way. There are Scots Tories who think such talk is folly, that it is quasi-Nationalism.

The Sanderson report is remarkably thorough and wide-reaching. It has major reform to recommend for virtually every aspect of the party's organisation and structure. Dull, it is not.

I understand why the Commission said a future leader need not be an MSP: it envisages a period in which the Scots Tories have revived and have umpteen MPs from whom to choose.

Report in principle

But does that message sit entirely comfortably with the stress elsewhere in the document on the relative primacy of Holyrood within the Scottish body politic?

Is it entirely helpful to Annabel Goldie? Ditto the suggestion that the election of a new all-potent Scottish leader should "take place directly after the next Scottish Parliament election in May 2011".

At Holyrood, the party talk is that - while a leader might emerge from outwith the Scottish Parliamentary ranks - such a prospect is not envisaged in the near future.

And that the current incumbent, while enthused by the report in principle, feels that the immediate focus must be upon those elections.

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