Goldie's Scottish policies fail to glisten

IN 1999, a relatively tame Tory manifesto helped the Scottish Conservatives win 18 seats in the new Scottish Parliament. As details emerge of what policies are likely to be offered this year by the New Model Party of Annabel Goldie, that first political offering now looks decidedly radical by comparison. Gone is the across-the-board council tax cut of 35 per cent offered to the whole electorate in 2005 - replaced with a discount of 50 per cent restricted to pensioners only.

In 1999, the Tories' famous "FCUK tuition fees" campaign, which Miss Goldie objected to on grounds of bad taste, helped to win valuable votes from students and their parents.

It was followed by a commitment to abolish the graduate tax - but now that proposal is to be axed as the party repositions itself with tax cuts played down and social responsibility played up. Graduates can pay their 2,289 "endowment" as the Tories have moved on to become the old people's party.

One wonders why they don't merge with John Swinburne's Scottish Senior Citizens Party, which lies only three points behind the Conservatives in Central Region and is an obvious demographic fit.

These policy changes will come as a surprise to most candidates and supporters who have to face the public on the doorstep. After years of saying that the Scottish state was growing too large, crowding out individual endeavour and suffocating enterprise, the current level of public spending is now embraced.

Rather than roll back the state and give private enterprise room and encouragement, the Conservatives are reduced to coming up with better political wheezes than their socialist competitors. The typical centre-right voter is expected to salivate at the idea of tripling the budget on drug rehabilitation, abolishing bridge tolls and throwing money at affordable housing - a policy better described as pouring petrol on a fire.

Why these U-turns by the keeper of the Tory flame? The first reason is that Goldie is trying to play to her strengths. After four years with Goldie as Tory enterprise spokesman between 1999 and 2003, the Conservatives found that their policies ranked last of the four main parties in an influential survey of business leaders. Not unsurprisingly, she was moved in the following reshuffle to justice - where she displayed a surer touch when talking about crime and drugs.

Goldie would be on unsafe territory at press conferences talking about taxes, spending and education and could expect to be monstered by the media, grounding the campaign before it had a chance to take off.

Unfortunately for her, both Labour and the Scottish National Party have trumped traditional Tory law and order policies by offering more police officers and more laws. Whether they deliver or not is another matter, but at least they now sound as tough as the Tories. Without tax cuts and with an emasculated law and order policy, what's left for the Tory party but to become just yet another centre-left group of politicians trying to buy votes with the electorate's own money?

The second reason for this policy-free zone is that the hard work and detailed analysis that is required to show that tax cuts can be afforded without harming front-line services has not been done.

It's not the fault of the brave team of researchers - it is simply that the MSPs have not asked them to do it. At the recent Tory policy conference, it was noticeable that the demands for tax cutting came from aspiring MSPs rather than the incumbents. Call this going native or a more realistic approach, either way tax cuts are just not on the agenda. Thousands of Scots will now be disenfranchised.

For Conservative MSPs there is however, an upside. Once the electoral dust has settled and the votes are counted there are deals to be done and bargains to be struck. Dropping totemic policies that cannot easily be abandoned makes entering a coalition or supporting a minority administration that much easier. That's right, the "vote blue - get red" strategy is still alive and well in Goldie's thinking.

The Scottish Conservatives can offer either the abolition of the Scottish Parliament, or they can embrace it as part of Scottish life. To do the former would ensure a quicker political demise than the slow death it is currently experiencing; but at least it would die with dignity, having stood for something.

To do the latter requires it to offer reforms that make Holyrood leaner and financially responsible for its actions, attracting a patriotic centre-right electorate that no-one is yet appealing to.

Tories could offer to cut spending to levels that the country can afford, they could set an example by cutting back on the number of MSPs and ministers, and they could invoke the Tartan Tax, reducing the standard rate by 3p - offering an attractive incentive to the self-employed that are the driving force of the small business economy. They could even try and modernise, like David Cameron, leader of the UK Tories. Instead, they look set to do none of these things. Tory Manifesto 2007? Will it honestly be worthy of the name?

• Brian Monteith is an independent MSP