Farewell to the ideas morgue of party politics

Published on Tuesday 21 March 2006 00:27

IT'S NOW some four months since I left the Tory party under a dark cloud of my own making, and people are still kindly asking if I am all right. I'm touched, pleasantly surprised and grateful that so many friends have put my error to the side and shown concern that I don't do something stupid - like join the SNP. They needn't worry; I've never had the guts for suicide.

I am by nature an optimist, my glass is at least always half full (with another glass at the side) and I quickly decided that I should recognise that as one door had closed in my life it was for me to try all the others until I could find the ones that would now open. Thankfully my faith has been rewarded and some doors are beginning to shift.

For the moment I'm an Independent MSP, or Independent Conservative as I prefer to say, and it's a world of difference to arguing almost daily with many of my erstwhile colleagues about why we should cut business rates, liberate our schools or make the Scottish Parliament more accountable.

Being an independent offers many advantages. For a start, I no longer have to attend those interminable group meetings which were initially open and discursive but pretty quickly became a morgue for any fresh ideas, to the point where it was best to say as little as possible (although, me being me, I sometimes could not resist saying something heretical just to provoke the thin-skinned).

Now I have my own group meetings of one. They are over very quickly and are unanimous, while voting instructions are simple - I don't need to be told, or ask for permission to vote a certain way.

Discipline is also very easy. If I'm late for a vote I give myself a really good talking to. As I'm my own whip I suppose I'm now a sadist and a masochist at the same time - I can enjoy the self flagellation of beating myself up.

Not having the numbers behind me limits my ability to mount parliamentary assaults on the Executive but it does not prohibit my ability to develop new ideas on cutting taxes and opening up markets, both of which were hugely resisted within the party as much as outside it. Nor does it limit my ability to represent the views of electors or take up their casework.

The greatest benefit of all must be not having to attend what now passes for the Scottish Tory conference, like the one last week.

Thank goodness for that - having seen these beauty parades from both ends of the kaleidoscope they became a colourless sham a long time ago, devoid of any genuine debate, any inspiration and a perennial test for the leader that was the equivalent of political vivisection.

As an ordinary delegate I used to enjoy them, mixing with the MPs, Cabinet ministers and reptiles in the hotel bars until dawn.

I remember my first conference at Blackpool in 1978. It was standing- room only in a jam-packed Winter Gardens. I was stuck behind a large pillar that would have hidden Giant Haystacks, unable to see the speaker but marvelling at the Churchillian tones of some no-doubt old bloke, when a person to the side of me moved and allowed me to get a glimpse of a 16- going-on-13-year-old peering above the lectern. It was William Hague, with that speech that has come to both bless and haunt him in equal measure. At that moment, only 20 myself, I thought, that's it, I'm finished, there's no hope for any of us old fogies with Hague coming up behind us.

The problem is that those sort of moments are now very unlikely to ever happen again. The Tory party - all parties - just don't want to risk anything happening beyond their control. Any possible embarrassment must be avoided, so everything is choreographed - even some of the faux protests have been agreed beforehand.

Conference organisers from party HQ just don't like too many speakers from the floor, lest they accuse Annabel Goldie of being clueless and lazy or many in the Tory group of going native. A genuine risk, I wager.

The thing one does miss is renewing old acquaintances and reliving memories of how we stuffed the Left at university and at elections, only to now marvel at how so many of those anti-capitalist, pro-Soviet fellow-travellers have since become BBC television producers, millionaire businessmen and New Labour ministers.

So do I regret leaving the party, all those committee meetings where hours are spent deciding what shade of blue to use or how to raise money for the next campaign? I don't think so. I can choose the pantone colours for myself now and leave the terminal problems of Scotland's sorriest golf club for others to confront. The opportunity not to fight the Stirling seat for the third and probably last time is a wrench, for there are many good people that I enjoyed working with.

You see, it is people one misses, and as my true friends have made themselves known, I can now spend some time trying those door handles while using my remaining months as an MSP to say what I believe needs said and helping those that need a voice. That has to be better than joining the SNP.