Tories

For some time now we have been told - by the editor of this magazine among other, less distinguished, commentators - that David Cameron and the Downing Street machine view Scotland as a rum, far-off place about which they know little and which, on the rare occasions they pay attention to it, perplexes them mightily. One would like to think this were not the case but it seems a dispiriting and accurate appraisal. Why - indeed why-oh-why - do Conservatives abandon the principles of Conservatism when discussion turns to Scotland? On Sunday "sources close to the Prime Minister" apparently ruled out any talk of fiscal autonomy, devolution plus, devo max or anything else you care to call the useful accumulation of greater revenue powers at Holyrood.

How brave are the Scottish Tories? Brave enough to appreciate that they might have to risk the Union to save it? Bold enough to recognise that much greater powers for Holyrood are in their interest just as much as such additional powers are something the SNP craves? Because how can there be a right-of-centre revival while Holyrood is charged with spending but is not expected (or allowed) to do the dirty work of raising its own revenue? And, mark this, Scottish politics needs a centre-right party that is credible and capable of offering an alternative to the smug consensus that otherwise too often dominates Scottish politics. Holyrood is unbalanced at present, both in terms of its responsibilities and the range of views heard within its walls. So what can fix that?

Michael Moore's statement to the House of Commons on the question of how a referendum on Scotland's constitutional future may be held was clear, composed, sensible and modest. In other words it was everything that the last few days have not been. The Prime Minister in particular - as bemoaned here, here and here - has not distinguished himself in recent times. Perhaps it is fairer (it is certainly kinder) to presume this was just as innocent a cock-up as any Prime Ministerial cock-up can be; regardless is was a desperate piece of floundering that made Mr Cameron look something of a chump.

Shockingly, it is possible some of you did not see my appearance on BBC News this afternoon. Thanks to the wonders of Youtube and the baffling enthusiasm some people have for clipping and sharing these things, you can catch up with it now. As is always the case, I forgot half the things I wanted to say. Jon Sopel asked if it was really plausible for David Cameron to "do nothing". Well, of course it is. Indeed when you cannot offer anything useful it is best to offer nothing at all. The time - as a few of us argued back then - for Conservatives to back a referendum came and went in the last parliament. The Tories could have (nay, should have) supported Alex Salmond's referendum bill then.

How bad was the last Labour government? Pretty much as bad as you can imagine says my old friend Peter Oborne. Which leads me to ask if my old friend has gone mad? According to Peter: It is now widely accepted that the years of New Labour government were an almost unalloyed national disaster. Whichever measure you take – moral, social, economic, or the respect in which Britain is held in the world – we went into reverse. Nevertheless, historians may come to judge that these 13 years of Labour misrule served a vital purpose. In retrospect, the Brown/Blair period may be seen as a prolonged experiment which taught the liberal Left that its ideas cannot work, do not work, and have no chance of ever working. It takes time to ruin a country.

There is a good deal of good sense in the magazine's main leader this week. By which I mean of course that a good deal of it is unconvincing and some of it dangerously so. That is, if David Cameron listens to the Spectator he risks assisting the very forces - Alex Salmond and the SNP - the magazine's editors (and the Prime Minister himself) wish to defeat. Of course Alex Salmond is beatable and of course support for UN-member independence is a minority enthusiasm. This is one reason why a referendum seems to scare Scots less than it does politicians and pundits based in London. (Most of those pundits and politicians, incidentally, seem only to care about Scotland's constitutional question; the actual governance of the country is, at best, most often an afterthought.

Brother Korski is, as always, the voice of urbane reason on all matters european. I have little idea whther David Cameron done brilliant in Brussels lately or whether he's blundered badly. Neither verdict seems satisfactory or sufficiently nuanced. There is this, however: in one respect he has done the rest of europe a favour: had he agreed to a new treaty he would have been forced to hold a referendum in Britain and it is hard to see how any treaty, be it ever so favourable to Britain, could have passed. Cue more diplomatic shenanigans and assorted other awkwardness in Brussels. By standing aside Cameron may have "isolated" Britain but he's made life much easier - though it's stll far from simple - for every other leader in europe.

Amidst the economic doom and gloom (though all the forecasts are always wrong so who knows how things will look by 2015?), the politics of the coalition government remain interesting. So Danny Alexander's performance on Newnight tonight was very interesting. The Chief Secretary of the Treasury told Jeremy Paxman that the Liberal Democrats were committed to the new spending and borrowing plans announced by George Osborne yesterday. Furthermore, the spending cuts announced for the first two years of the next parliament (though said plans can only be aspirational since they cannot, surely, bind the next parliament?) would be part of the next Liberal Democrat manifesto. I doubt Tim Farron or Simon Hughes or even Vince Cable think this a good idea.

These days "Talking Scotland down" is both the gravest sin imaginable and the standard SNP response to any suggestion there might be even the occasional or minor drawback to independence. Thus when Philip Hammond makes the obvious point that Rump Britannia might not build warships on the Clyde he's being "anti-Scottish". Thus too when George Osborne suggests some firms might want the constitutional questions - including EU-access - clarified to assist their long-term planning he too is guilty of "talking Scotland down". It is true, as Joan McAlpine says, that we have been here before and the sky did not fall.

Good stuff from Lord Ashcroft this morning. Good because, obviously, he agrees with me that the Tory obsession with Europe and, just as importantly, the style in which that obsession is paraded before the public damages the party. As the noble lord puts it: [W]e know that for many people, the main barrier to voting Conservative is that they do not think we share the concerns of people like them.  But which issue has the last week shown still seems to exercise our party above all others? Some will be inclined to blame the media for the back-to-the-nineties coverage of Tory turmoil over Europe.  But the fact that we know journalists find the story irresistible makes it all the more ludicrous to hand it to them on a plate. [...

Well, James, hang on a minute. The three "schools of thought" you identify in relation to last night's Tory rebellion on Europe are not three distinct schools at all. That is, one may consider the Tory party "unmanageable" on europe and believe that the leadership got caught up in the madness yesterday. But it is your final school that really have it wrong: The third lot are the ones who have grasped the significance of last night's events. Despite being loyalists, they are in no doubt about the need for Cameron to change his style of party management. They want him to stop acting like a medieval monarch and start behaving in the manner of someone who is first among equals when it comes to his parliamentary colleagues. Up to a point.

At the risk of careering round an old argument, Jonathan, the graphs you've produced on political affiliations are yet another reminder, if ever one were needed (and it is) that the Tory right's argument that Cameron would have won a majority if only he'd run a blue-meat campaign is dreadfully mistaken. As you can see, more voters identify with the left than the right. This was Tony Blair's legacy and the ground upon which Cameron was compelled to fight. I suppose it is possible that Cameron could move right without alienating voters who consider themselves - accurately or not - centrists but I suggest this is not probable.

The ballots for the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party's leadership election have been posted to members and few people, I think, have any real idea as to what the result will be. In general terms, as readers know, I'm sympathetic to Murdo Fraser's analysis of the woes afflicting conservatism in Scotland and unpersuaded that Ruth Davidson's campaign has been as good as it should have been. These concerns were scarcely assuaged by Ruth's article in last week's Scotland on Sunday. Choked with cliches and boilerplate it was a depressingly thin analysis of the state of the party. "We need to change ourselves, not our name" she wrote which is, well, fine but part of the point of the name-changing idea is to demonstrate once and for all that the party has changed itself.