MODERATE Tories are becoming increasingly alarmed as party chairman Mr
Michael Forsyth completes his right-wing revolution at Scottish
Conservative Party headquarters in Edinburgh.
Mr Forsyth's grip on the party is now virtually total with the
appointment to senior Central Office posts of a string of young men with
a background on the ultra-right, libertarian wing of the party.
The party chief executive Mr John MacKay is on holiday but he will not
be returning to his desk at Chester Street. Although he is to retain the
nominal title of chief executive, he has been marginalised as a force
and the real administrative power within the Scottish Tory Party now
lies with Mr Russell Walters, the man appointed by Mr Forsyth to be his
chief of staff.
Mr MacKay's departure places Mr D. Russell Walters firmly in the
political spotlight. A Chester Street insider said: ''Make no mistake,
Russell is in charge. He now runs the show.''
Mr Walters was the first appointment made by Mr Forsyth who was
himself the personal choice of the Prime Minister. She perceived him as
the man with the qualifications to run the new-model Tory Party in
Scotland.
Mr Walters, a Welshman, was hired as part of Mr Forsyth's campaign to
cleanse the party of those not in tune with his philosophy that
''politics is a battleground'' and that many Scottish Tories had
forgotten how to fight.
Two senior Chester Street men, organisational director Mr Bob Balfour
and director of campaigns Mr Peter Smith, were soon seeking terms which
would allow them to leave. Meanwhile, right-wingers Mr Simon Turner and
Mr Douglas Young, in the Walters-Forsyth mould with a political past on
the libertarian right, are also to be part of Mr Forsyth's team.
The chairman has surrounded himself with zealous young men whose
background is in the controversial world of the disbanded Federation of
Conservative Students and similarly rightist groupings. The FCS was
subject to an internal inquiry after a rowdy conference at Loughborough
in 1985.
Scottish Secretary Mr Malcolm Rifkind, in an interview with the
Scotsman today, reaffirmed his authority within the Scottish Tory Party
and denied reports of a rift between him and Mr Forsyth.
''When we are in government the Secretary of State is at the top.
Michael is a friend and a colleague and a very loyal junior Minister in
my ministerial team,'' he said.
''We work extremely well as a team. Power in Scotland rests with the
Scottish Office and I am in charge of the Scottish Office.''
Mr Rifkind said Mr Forysth's chairmanship did not signal any policy
change and he described Mr Forsyth's changes at headquarters as a long
overdue conversion of the organisation into a ''modern professional
fighting organ''.
''Inevitably that can involve some elements of controversy, but I have
no doubt that the thinking behind it is absolutely right and
justified,'' Mr Rifkind said.
Over the years the libertarian wing of the party, which has had a
solid base in Scotland -- Mr Forsyth was FCS chairman in the
mid-seventies -- has gloried in its image as the Blue Trots with more
radical elements advocating legalisation of incest, hard drugs, and much
else besides.
Conservative Central Office has been unusually reticent about
discussing Mr Walters's background, even to the extent of declining a
request for a photograph.
Details of his employment history have trickled into the public
domain. Initially it was revealed that he had come from the Adam Smith
Institute. Then came the news that he had once been a researcher with
the more right-wing Economic League.
The London-based league is an organisation funded by business
subscribers which compiles lists of so-called political agitators and
trade union activists. Subscribing companies use such information when
recruiting.
Mr Walters was one of the senior operatives in the league's
intelligence gathering department.
Mr Michael Noar, the man who ran the league until this June, was
unwilling to be interviewed. However, he conceded that so far as he was
aware Mr Walters had been with the organisation until mid-July.
''He was a much valued member of the research department,'' said Mr
Noar before concluding the conversation.
In April, 1988, Mr Walters was involved in a House of Commons row when
it emerged that a list he was said to have compiled contained details of
the alleged activities and affiliations of Labour MPs, including a
number on the moderate wing of the party.
The Economic League was formed in 1919 to defend ''free enterprise,
individual liberty, and parliamentary democracy.'' In addition to
compiling lists of ''subversives'', it was also active in the propaganda
war waged at the gates of strike-hit factories and saw it as its
function to counter trade union and left wing literature with pamphlets
of its own.
It achieved an unwelcome high-profile as a result of an investigative
series by the World in Action TV programme. Mr Walters also figured in
this as the Granada team sought to highlight the link between the league
and its activities and the Conservative party.
In 1987 Mr Walters was an unsuccessful candidate for vice-chairmanship
of the Young Conservative wing of the party and he has also been an
office bearer with Greater London Young Conservatives.
In his 1987 campaign material Mr Walters described himself as having
served as an officer with the Association for a Free Russia and the
International Society for Human Rights.
He stated: ''You may have been misled by one of the scandalous lies
put into circulation about the Thatcherite team: that we support
apartheid and legalisation of hard drugs. Discount such propaganda . . .
we are not nutters or extremists.''
Mrs Maria Fyfe, Labour MP for Glasgow Maryhill, is concerned about Mr
Walters's involvement in the Economic League. She has been a leading
campaigner against the league and last year unsuccessfully proposed a
Commons Bill which was intended to make its activities illegal.
She is astounded that Mr Forsyth should appoint one of the league's
principal research-intelligence officers to high office in the Scottish
Tory Party.
She said: ''Basically, we wanted to amend the Data Protection Act so
that the Economic League could not keep card index files on individuals
without their knowledge. They have blacklisted thousands of people who
know nothing whatever of it and they very often get things wrong.
''There are now 70 MPs who are members of our campaign. We have
respresentatives from all parties except the Tories.
''I suppose I shouldn't be surprised that Michael Forsyth appoints
someone like Russell Walters. They both belong to the hard right after
all. This will not go down well with the people of Scotland, though.
Appointments such as these will backfire on the Tories because these
people hold attitudes which are alien to most Scots.''
One Scot who has figured in the Economic League's blacklists is
Dalkeith High School history teacher Mr Derek Philips. He is an SNP
activist and organiser of the party branch in Penicuik. He appeared on
the blacklist, wrongly, as a member of the anti-apartheid movement. He
found out about it through the World in Action programme.
Mr Philips said: ''As it happened, I wasn't a member although I did
once carry a Free Nelson Mandela banner during a miners' strike march in
Edinburgh. I also wrote a letter about Nelson Mandela to the Scotsman. I
leave people to make up their own minds about how I then appear on an
Economic League blacklist, not as an SNP activist, but as a supporter of
the anti-apartheid movement. It is sinister.
''I wish Russell Walters all the bad luck in the world as he begins
his new job.''
The closed world which exists on the far right flank of the
Conservative Party is a tangle of inter-connected organisations and
personnel.
While Mr Walters was on the executive of the Greater London Young
Conservatives a colleague and friend was one Mr Andrew Rossindell. Mr
Rossindell, 23, is a publisher who runs Britannia Press Features Ltd in
Romford, Essex. He has recently been admitted to the Scottish list of
Conservative prospective parliamentary candidates.
Many of the pressure groups of the right, such as the Committee for a
Free Britain, have links with individuals who were once active in the
Federation of Conservative Students.
An indication of how inter-linked, casual or otherwise, this
brotherhood of libertarians is can be gauged from the response to a
telephone inquiry to the CFB office in London.
Asked if Mr Russell Walters was around, the man in the committee's
office first asked who was calling and then said: ''You won't find Mr
Walters here.
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