The north-south divide

Published on Saturday 3 October 2009 19:43

IT IS a breezy October day in the prosperous southside of Glasgow. Four-by-fours rumble past while the BMW garage, the fashionable organic veg shop and the trendy children's clothes shops all look like they're doing good business. Giffnock high street, in the constituency of East Renfrewshire, looks like it should be solid Conservative territory.

But this is Scotland. And despite the well-pruned hedges and litter-free streets, the subject of Tories immediately raises the temperature. "The Conservatives? You can quote me on this: I despise them. I am a Christian. I'm an egalitarian. I hate everything they stand for," says one middle-aged, well-dressed man as he enters the shops. "I hate Thatcher for what she did to this country."

He storms off refusing to give his name. Further down the street, pensioner Mary Fitzstewart offers a more reasoned case. She voted Tory back in the Eighties. Then she turned to Labour, but she won't be voting Labour this time. "I don't feel we're being led at the moment," she says. So back to the Tories then? She sighs. "I might do. But then I might vote for the SNP as well."

Forty miles east, on the southern outskirts of Edinburgh, Juniper Green offers a similarly peaceful scene of suburban calm. Well-kept and prosperous, the tidy village is at the heart of the old Pentlands seat once held, for 15 years, by former foreign secretary Sir Malcolm Rifkind. His loss, on the famous June election night in 1997, was one of the iconic images of the times. But that was over a decade ago. Surely the antipathy towards the Tories after those 18 years in power has finally dried up? Mother-of-one Pauline Mercer was just 16 when Rifkind lost that night. Certainly, she's had enough of Gordon Brown. So time for the Tories then?

"I don't like David Cameron," she insists. "I think he is out to cater to the south of England rather than Scotland. To me there's no relationship between the Tories and Scotland. As it stands, I might not even vote at all. Not because I don't want to, but there's nobody that reflects my views."

The owner of the local Juniper Cafe, 30-year-old Lyn Harper, is equally hesitant. "I would consider voting Conservative, but I'm considering all my options. I'm not convinced yet by the Tories. I am thinking of voting Liberal at the next election, and haven't ruled out the SNP."

What is it about Scotland and the Tories? In Manchester this week, Cameron will offer his final speech to the Conservative Party conference before what is expected by every pundit and pollster in the country to be a triumphant march to Downing Street. The coalition of voters in Middle England who opted for Tony Blair in 1997 appear to have decided to switch back to the Conservatives. But, in Scotland, the so-called Cameron bounce has so far been no more than a faint twitch.

Evidence from opinion polls varies. Some suggest the Conservatives are finally gaining strength, passing the 20 per cent mark which, for more than a decade, has eluded them. Others, concentrating on marginal constituencies, suggest a breakthrough is still some way off. But after a week in which the Scottish edition of the Sun felt unable to follow its English version in backing the Tories, the breakthrough remains elusive.

The more crowded political landscape in Scotland, where the SNP, not the Conservatives, take the mantle of Labour's principal rival, is the obvious reason why the Conservatives struggle. But the evidence in Giffnock and Juniper Green, both areas the Conservatives must win if they are to win back ground in Scotland, suggests that there remains a continuing reluctance even in its core areas to sign up to the Conservative brand. An election is now, at the most, nine months away. Could a Conservative revival happen by then? Or are the Tories in Scotland still too toxic? And what would a Tory victory really mean for Scotland?

THE airwaves in Scotland will be filled with Cameron tomorrow, as he kicks off what promises to be a historic party conference. The Tory leader has taken time out of his diary to ensure he speaks to Scottish broadcasters, ahead of a speech tomorrow by the party's Scottish leader Annabel Goldie. Scotland, where he has regularly holidayed in the past, is very much in his thoughts.

A carefully crafted Scottish agenda is in place. Last week, Cameron declared that he would be coming to meet First Minister Alex Salmond prior to the election next year to discuss how to work together. The aim is to drown Scottish antipathy in a sticky tide of charm. But quite whether Scotland is happy to return the compliment is very much in doubt.

Consequently, a nightmare scenario is now looming for the Scottish party. If Cameron were to win next year, but fail to make ground in Scotland, it will be meat and drink for the SNP government. Not only would the new Conservative government have to explain why it was having to cut public spending to a restless Scottish public, it would have to explain why it had the right to do so, having failed to win any popular support.

One senior party figure declares: "You'll have the combination of an SNP government which will use every chance it can get to create division, and a Labour Party which is likely to become more nationalist, as they usually do when they're out of power. The media will also likely be pretty hostile. On top of that there will be public sector cuts which will be blamed on Westminster. It's not going to be good."

Despite the attempts already made by Cameron to try and soothe the coming anger, many people in the Scottish party do not believe he quite gets it. Conservative Party bosses in Edinburgh encounter similar problems to their Scottish Labour counterparts in trying to get their London-based bosses to shift to a Scottish mindset. "They're just not plugged in at all," says one prominent figure. Another adds: "My view is that Cameron doesn't really understand the political context. He hasn't really come to terms with the level of hostility that will rise up after the election."

The insider adds: "I think they see Alex Salmond as a provincial politician whom they will be able to handle. They are wrong because Salmond is extremely able. They are not thinking through what could be a constitutional crisis. There is a real possibility of support for independence growing if they don't handle it correctly. Cameron thinks he can manage the situation by being nice, but I don't think that is going to be nearly enough."

That fear has led some in the party – former Scottish secretary Lord Forsyth chief among them – to argue that Cameron should back Salmond's independence referendum, with the aim of taking the SNP's sense of grievance out of the game immediately. Support for Forsyth's stance within the Scottish party ranks is said to be growing, but whether the party leader is prepared to gamble with such high stakes remains a moot point.

Pressure from Salmond next year will be easier to bear, the party knows, if it puts up a good result and meets what it calls "the legitimacy question". Consequently, intense efforts are now being made to ensure that the Scots Tories get out their vote. The party's MSPs – criticised in some quarters for having failed to campaign for their Westminster colleagues – have been ordered recently to spend more time out on the streets, pressing the flesh. In target seats, candidates are being given more funds than ever before, with expensive polling being undertaken to ensure they know what message works. The party's flush UK coffers are being put to use.

As a result, a growing optimism is coursing through the Conservatives' veins, with some whispers that the Tories could win as many as ten Scottish seats next year. That would bring the party back to the strength it had prior to its 1997 wipeout, allowing them to say they had put their years of exile behind them. One candidate recently declared privately that by this time next year "the Borders will be blue".

Certainly, it appears likely that, adding to the Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale seat is already holds, the Conservatives look odds-on to take Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk from the Liberals, and Dumfries and Galloway from Labour. But can they do more than that? In Edinburgh, there is talk of toppling both Chancellor Alistair Darling and former Labour minister Nigel Griffiths. In Stirling, there is also a chance of winning back the seat once held by Forsyth. The Tories are hoping to topple the Liberals in Aberdeenshire. And much attention will focus back on the streets of Giffnock, where – according to many insiders – Scottish Secretary Jim Murphy could be tipped out by local candidate Richard Cook.

But political analyst Professor James Mitchell, of Strathclyde University, is sceptical. "The scunnered Labour vote doesn't appear to be going to the Conservatives. Furthermore, the Labour vote is less scunnered in Scotland than it is in the rest of the country. That's because the Labour vote is quite different. In England, New Labour appealed to a whole spectrum of people that wasn't the case up here. And there is another home for disaffected Labour voters and that is the SNP. It has always been the case that Labour voters are happier to go the SNP than the Conservatives."

Back in Giffnock, there are some who will stick their heads above the parapet. Local shop owner Vincent Valentini declares: "I think Cameron should be praised for wanting to keep Scotland in the UK. He could let Scotland go, and then he'd be in power in England forever," he declares. "Labour have just spent all this time looking after their own. It's somebody else's chance now."

The 'give-them-a-chance' factor looks almost certain to send Cameron to Downing Street. In Scotland, however, those prepared to follow Valentini's lead still seem sparse in number. Despite 12 years in the wilderness, the party faces a huge challenge persuading Scots they deserve another chance. This week, that challenge begins in earnest.

Tory Timeline

1955 The Conservative Party and the Scottish Unionist Party wins 50.1 per cent of the vote, the only time a party has won more than half the popular vote.

1965 The two parties merge, creating the Scottish Conservatives and Unionist Party, coming under control of the UK Conservative Party. Support ebbs as the party is portrayed as an Anglicised operation

1979 The Thatcher revolution propels a surge in the Scottish Conservatives performance, as it wins more than 30 per cent of the vote and returns 22 MPs.

1987 But as Thatcher's popularity dwindles, despite the efforts of Scottish secretary George Younger, so the number of Scottish Tory MPs halves to ten, with the share of the vote down to 24 per cent.

1988 Thatcher gives her infamous "Sermon on the Mound" at the Kirk General Assembly in Edinburgh in which she quoted St Paul's words: "If a man will not work he shall not eat." She is rebuked afterwards by ministers over the poverty in the country.

1989 The Tories introduce the Poll Tax in Scotland a year before the rest of the country, fermenting more bitterness against the Conservative Party over its perceived "anti-Scottishness".

1992 Against expectation, John Major manages to ensure a slight improvement in the Conservative support base.

1996 Scottish secretary Michael Forsyth rejects calls for devolution and attempts to rally support by engineering the return of the Stone of Scone from Westminster Abbey.

1997 The Scottish Conservatives are wiped out in the country, as their share of the vote drops to 17 per cent and all their MPs lose.

1999 The party is given a foothold back by winning 18 seats at the Scottish Parliament.

2001 Farmer Peter Duncan wins the Galloway seat in the General Election, putting the party back on the Scottish Westminster map.

2003 Three more seats are won at Holyrood.

2005 David McLetchie resigns following revelations about the sums of money he had been claiming for taxis on his expenses.

2007T he election of David Cameron as UK party leader makes little difference to the Scottish party who gain a solitary seat.