Scots Tories need a complete overhaul

As A Scottish Tory member and election candidate it has been obvious to me for many years that the party hierarchy is out of touch with ordinary people in Scotland (your report, 6 July).

A change of name would be irrelevant and smack of deceit, but the need for independence from London is more apparent than ever before.

Scottish Tory members are primarily socially conservative and staunchly Unionist. Sadly, the "modern" Conservative Party is led by people who are instinctively neither, hence the likelihood of the often premature but long-predicted "wipe-out" within the next couple of years.

Members and activists are sick of being taken for granted by an arrogant leadership which treats their small "c" conservative opinions with open contempt.

The shambolic "dismissal" of my own candidacy in North Ayrshire and Arran in April (for expressing respectful, mildly conservative and Christian views on homosexuality) was the last straw for many members, and many across Scotland have either resigned or are intending to allow their membership to lapse as a result.

As well as the Calman proposals being unpopular with members, the Scottish MSPs voted in an internal ballot last autumn to reject them, yet David Mundell and the "Cameroons" have pressed on regardless. One must wonder whether David Cameron privately sees Calman as a clever way to divest himself of his "Scottish problem" once and for all - as it would inevitably lead to Scottish independence.

Anyone who thinks otherwise should remember the claims in 1997 that devolution would sink the SNP. Anyone who thinks they can believe a word Cameron says about being a Unionist should go and lie down in a dark room.

Among Labour and SNP voters, there is a sizeable proportion of people who are deeply disillusioned with their offerings but simply see no alternative.

They long for a socially conservative and right-of-centre unionist party which has enough common sense to realise that the private sector must be encouraged to thrive, but who also realise that slashing public spending and pensions is not only unpopular, but economically illiterate and self-defeating.

Law and order (especially knife crime), immigration and a frustration with "political correctness" gone mad are concerns which offer a common-sense, right of centre party huge opportunities if it will only put jobs and the ordinary working people (of all 'classes') first.

Those running the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party must decide whether they can continue to cloak their own deep-rooted, wet, liberal and supine instincts in the colours of what was only 55 years ago the most popular political party in Scotland, or be honest and change the party's name to reflect their current state as directionless, irrelevant, repellent and (about to be) extinct: how about "DIRE"?

PHILIP LARDNER

Parkinch

Erskine, Renfrewshire

As LORD Sanderson wanders around as the Scottish Tories' Titanic deckchair attendant, the management of the party ignore the real reasons for their lack of success (your report, 6 July).

In the rest of the UK the Tories got a majority at the recent election.

Since 2005 David Cameron, George Osborne and those around them have been working 100-hour weeks turning the party around. They reinvigorated moribund constituencies, formulated policy and worked with the media.

While some of their success was due to the electorate rejecting Gordon Brown the fact that more votes did not go to the Lib Dems or Ukip shows they had some success.

In Scotland since 1997 the Tory Party has appeared as a part-time organisation. The generous funding from Irvine Laidlaw has meant that a central core has been well funded and simultaneously meant there was no need to depend on building constituency organisations.

At the same time the list system meant that the choice of candidates is decided centrally by the poltical parties. Instead of being submitted to the vagaries of constituency first past the post systems, the list has ensured places for favoured candidates no matter how questionable their abilites in all parties.

While the Tories at Westminster have produced media content on a continuous basis, the Scottish Party has not been seen to produce any sensible policies. Their media presence and response has been lacklustre.

The reality is changing the name is not going to make any difference. The only way the Tory Party is going to be revived in Scotland is by getting some dynamic, hard-working management who understand politics and its demands which extend far beyond nine-to-five hours.

They need to produce well thought-out policies which take into account the fact that most of the everyday decisions in Scotland are made in the Scottish Parliament or local councils. Devolution has marginalised Westminster and changed the Union.

If the Tory Party cannot reinvigorate its constituency network and start winning more seats then the simple solution for Cameron would be to give Scotland independence, that way he ensures that he would not be held back by his underperforming Scottish party in 2015.

BRUCE SKIVINGTON

Pairc a Ghlib

Gairloch, Wester Ross

Hardly a day goes by without a newspaper column devoted to what the Scottish Tories can do to revive their ailing party. Dumping their leader, becoming separate from their London HQ and changing their name have all been suggested.

However, no one has asked the obvious question: does it really matter whether the Scottish Conservatives survive or not? From 1997 to 2001 there were no Scottish Tory MPs in Westminster.

I remember us getting by without them. Holyrood's PR system virtually guarantees some 15-to-20 Tory MSPs, so despite the endless internal reviews, Scottish Conservatism will most likely survive a decade or two as a quaint anachronism while the rest of us concern ourselves with 21st-century politics.

GAVIN FLEMING

Grassmarket

Edinburgh

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