THE Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party has been in decline for so long that gallows humour set in long ago. I recall one old hand observing with detached amusement as the Liberal Democrats dealt with the difficult transition from party of opposition to party of government a few years ago. “We’re used to being hated,” he remarked wryly. “It’s a new experience for them”.

“Toxic” was the adjective that generally attached itself to the Scottish Tory brand after 1997, so much so that many – this columnist included – often assumed the party was in terminal decline. I was similarly cynical about the revival mooted since the start of this year, a twin prediction that Ruth Davidson would not only increase her number of MSPs but also displace Labour as the main opposition party.

So a mea culpa is in order (pundits get stuff wrong – who knew?): this week’s result is impressive by a number of political yardsticks. The party not only increased its share of the vote but its number of elected representatives; senior Scottish Tories expected to get up to 25 seats and instead they got 31, more (to put things in context) than the SNP managed in the 2003 election.

The party even got three list MSPs in the Central Scotland region, four in the North East and three in the Highlands and Islands, many of which they regard as “bonuses”. As Ms Davidson pointed out at her deliberately muted press conference yesterday afternoon, three-quarters of the Scottish Tory MSP group are newly elected. She herself gained Edinburgh Central on the constituency vote, to her evident surprise, while in Perthshire North there was a 12.5 per cent swing from the SNP to the Tories.

Chiefly, the result boiled down to the party going into the election with a compellingly simple strategy (I can’t remember the last time such a sentence could have been written); in other words it had a clear proposition: 1) it of all the Unionist parties would hold the SNP to account, and 2) it resolutely opposed another independence referendum.

In other words, the Conservatives correctly identified the lay of the land following the last referendum and subsequent General Election and altered their pitch accordingly. Such tactics used to come easily to (what was once) the natural party of government, but not in recent years, and certainly not in Scotland.

But it worked, although of course it did so because that strategy had a credible messenger: Ms Davidson. To party strategists, that impression crystallised during the last leaders’ debate at Hopetoun House on Sunday evening. Not only did the optics – Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Tory leader in the two central positions – play well to the party’s framing of the election, but Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale ended up on the fringes, performing well enough but not as credibly as Ms Davidson.

Other events during the campaign played to the Scottish Conservatives’ central narrative: Ms Dugdale’s apparent flip-flopping when it came to hypothetical support for independence post-Brexit, and also Ms Sturgeon’s talking up of another referendum in the last week of the campaign. Tory strategists reckon the central “dilemma” for the SNP is its need to simultaneously appeal to independence enthusiasts and generally more conservative Middle Scotland.

And that tension, they believe, will become increasingly exposed over the next four years, during which there will be no major electoral distraction (barring local government elections this time next year), something they plan to exploit to the full. “Something has to fill that vacuum,” says a source, who also views Thursday’s result as a “seismic” change in the Scottish political landscape.

At the same time it would be overstating the case to somehow argue the Scottish Conservative Party has completely detoxified as a consequence of one impressive election result. “Yes, we’re now less toxic,” reflects one MSP. “But there’s a long way to go. Oppositions need to become governments, but who would coalesce with us?”

The Scottish Tories have, of course, worked with the SNP in the past, although that informal partnership (which successfully passed four budgets) is something both parties would now rather forget. The same MSP also cautions against complacency. “We need to continue to change, we need to continue to distance ourselves from London and support a federal UK.”

There is certainly scope for Ms Davidson to seek common ground with the minority Scottish Government when it comes to education reform and income tax – both parties are more pragmatic than they’d like to admit – but policy is not the party’s strong suit. New ideas did not loom large during its photocall-heavy campaign and questioned about it yesterday afternoon the Scottish Tory leader was woolly and unconvincing.

Nevertheless there’s a huge opportunity here for the party, but also a risk: Unionism still requires urgent reinvention, and slipping back into its old diehard defensive ways as the result of this election would be a strategic mistake.

The Labour and Liberal Democrat Unionist voters who have decided to support the Tories (many for the first time) will need something to vote for (a federal Union?) as well as against (independence).

And thinking longer term, when the second independence happens (and despite reduced prospects during the next parliamentary term it will still happen) it will no longer be Scottish Labour that leads the Battle for Britain. That hands a huge responsibility to Ms Davidson and her party, requiring them both to stand up for the Union while occasionally playing the Scottish card, highlighting strategic differences with Westminster and UK party policy.

Some even believe, particularly in the Imperial Capital, that the ground is now set for Ms Davidson to at some point transfer her political skills to London, although the idea she’d do so by standing for an English constituency is far-fetched, not to mention the undesirable appearance of leaving her party in the lurch.

But that such scenarios are even being discussed speaks to the relative change in the Scottish Conservative Party’s fortunes.

A few years ago Central Office in London was writing off Scotland as a lost cause; it’s certainly no longer that, but the crucial stage in the party’s recovery – should that recovery continue – is yet to come.