If you leave aside their policies – which, let's face it, is what many of their members do – all political parties resemble each other much more than they do any other sort of organisation.
This is particularly noticeable in their annual conferences, which have in common the fact that they are an almost complete waste of time. I remember once running into the editor of a broadsheet newspaper outside the conference hall in Blackpool in the rain; he was staring morosely at Kiss Me Quick hats and muttering "I can't bear it any more", so we went off and ate fish and chips. What I can't remember is which party was having the conference.
That is the usual conference experience, unless you like responding to banal catchphrases with carefully timed and orchestrated standing ovations, or get very excited about spotting shadow ministers of state whose own mothers have trouble remembering their names.
So it's odd to hear complaints that the Scottish Conservative Party conference in Stirling was failing to debate the issue its leadership seems keen to avoid, since there is little point in debating anything at any conference. For decades, they have been set pieces designed to show parties to their best advantage, to serve as springboards for election campaigns, and to try to galvanise the poor souls who have to stuff envelopes and traipse round doorsteps. Even on the rare occasions when something happens at a conference – like Neil Kinnock taking on Militant – it is for the benefit of the TV cameras, not discussion in the hall.
All the same, Conservative Party members should have used their get-together and its fringe meetings to start thinking about what they didn't debate; which is the central question of whether – assuming a No vote in the referendum – they can offer any new thinking about Scotland's constitutional arrangements and its Parliament's powers.
There is a school of thought that maintains that it doesn't much matter, because nothing seems capable of reviving the party's electoral fortunes. But its more likely that the reason for the collapse in Tory support north of the Border is rooted in the party's divisions over how to respond to devolution.
It is not credible that Scotland – even if majority sentiment is to the left of much of the rest of the UK – lacks a substantial constituency of voters who would support policies of the centre-right. Yet the Scottish Tories are self-evidently failing to win their support.
In the rest of the UK, the Conservative Party's electoral failure from the mid-1990s was in large part due to its own internal squabbles – principally over the EU – and its failure to understand the reasons why voters felt they were out of touch. David Cameron's modernising project has been only partly successful in correcting that; but it does at least indicate some awareness of the problem.
In Scotland, the collapse of a party which had enjoyed an overall majority in the 1950s and, contrary to popular myth, still had fairly healthy support all the way through Margaret Thatcher's time in office (the total wipeout was after John Major's government) cannot be because there are no "small-c" conservative voters. It is that too many of those voters dislike the party.
Pollsters, historians and party analysts can advance all sorts of reasons for this, from the decline of the working-class Unionist vote to the sleaze of the Major years and the expenses scandal. But some of those issues affect other parties, too. The most likely cause of the Scottish Tories' problems is that they cannot persuade voters that they have come to terms with devolution; as a consequence, they are perceived as an English party, not a Unionist one.
That will be a very difficult perception to turn around, but the Tories could make a start by realising that the debate over Scotland's relationship is, in reality, a potential opportunity for Conservatives, rather than a handicap or – the worst of all worlds, and the course they have been following so far – something to run away from.
Lord Strathclyde's plans to examine the matter are an unnecessary attempt to put off this debate, and utterly counter-productive if the party hopes to have anything to offer the electorate in either the referendum or the next General Election. If Ruth Davidson and the Prime Minister are still dithering about what stance to take, they could always have a look at the policies which their party claims to support already.
You may remember, before the last election, that one of Mr Cameron's big ideas was radical localism. "I passionately believe we need to localise power, as recommended by the Direct Democracy movement," he said. The general gist of these plans was that as much government as possible should be devolved to local authorities – a thoroughly Conservative idea which would restore a connection between taxation, representation and local expenditure. It would reduce inefficiency, shrink the state, encourage accountability, increase choice and, as a bonus – if English regional councils were given the same sort of powers as Holyrood – solve the West Lothian Question.
Yet with the exception of education policy and the not-terribly-successful vote for police commissioners, the Tories seem to have let most of this fall by the wayside. It offers, however, a real opportunity to take the initiative in Scotland. I'm not naïve enough to think that it will bring startling electoral success at once, but it might at least persuade Scots that the party isn't a dead duck.
And because the localisation policies would be applied throughout the UK, they offer the prospect of more power to Scottish voters (indeed, if Holyrood devolved powers to individual councils, to real grass-roots democracy) while at the same time maintaining and strengthening the Union.
One strong objection to the Nationalist case is that it is a complaint that the nation is held back by a lack of powers, while ignoring the fact that Holyrood has failed to exercise powers it already has. What better way would there have been to demonstrate fiscal responsibility, encourage enterprise and growth and dispel the myth of Scots being subsidy junkies than to cut tax within the provisions already available?
Tory activists have already promoted ideas like the transfer of powers from regional agencies to local councils, encouraging local control of schools and hospitals, scrapping central subsidies for local government in favour of letting them raise and spend their own revenue without Whitehall interference, and even the possibility of a local sales tax replacing VAT.
These are all Conservative notions which actually present a huge opportunity for the party in the debate over Scotland's governance; they are much more consistent, imaginative and potentially popular than anything the Labour party has to offer. It's hard to see why the Scottish Tories are reluctant to grasp the nettle, or thistle.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article