Could Cameron see the death of the Scottish Tories?

According to the Torygraph, David Cameron may be about to do something that not even Margaret Thatcher was able to achieve and kill off the Conservatives in Scotland. This may seem far fetched but it is what Murdo Fraser MSP and one of the possible winners of the leadership contest is proposing.

What Fraser wants is to hold a ballot of members with the proposal to disband the Scottish Conservativies and set up a new right wing party in Scotland. He believes that the Conservative brand is too toxic in Scotland since the wipe out in 1997 under the leadership of John Major.

If Fraser gets his way there will only be three parties that can say to have organisation across the whole of the UK, Labour, the Lib Dems and Greens. However, a lack of a party calling themselves Conservative is nothing new north of the border.

It was only in 1965 that the Conservatives in Scotland started to use the name Conservative, up until that time there were the Scottish Unionist Party. Though until that time the difference between the Scottish Unionist Party and the Conservative Party of England and Wales was had to differentiate, if not invisible when it came to Westminster. Indeed Andrew Bonar Law (1922-23) and Sir Alec Douglas-Home (1963-65) were both part of the separate Scottish Unionist Party but served as Conservative Prime Minister.

Beware of Scottish Conservatives deciding to return to the sheep's clothing of their former lupine appearances north of the border.

Dave Yor're Part of the Institution Too

David Cameron launched an attack on Gordon Brown yesterday that may well be misconceived; He said:

"There is no chance Gordon Brown will do what is right and put the public interest before his own political interests. He cannot reform the institution because he is the institution: he made it. The character of his Government — secretive, power-hoarding, controlling — is his character.

"For the health of our democracy it is now essential that this shameless defender of the old elite goes as soon as possible."

Of course given the chance to vote on expenses reforms in 2008 twenty one of his own MPs voted against such reform. As Mark Pack points out their excesses were above the average for Westminster.

Only one party in 2008 voted for radical reform. Only one party said that the institutions were wrong and needed changing. It wasn't the Tories either it was the Liberal Democrats. The Conservatives and David Cameron have hopped unto the bandwagon only because they have been caught with their fingers in the till. While the Liberal Democrats saw that the temptation was there and too great for some and wanted to take the sweetie jar away and make it more transparent just what was being claimed for and why.

You only have to look at David Cameron's promises on inheritance tax, he promises to provide free personal care if you can afford £8,000 on retirement to enter his insurance scheme, to see that he is as much part of the institution as he claims Gordon is. In his case it is pandering to the elite but it still part of the machine that has existed for too long.