Your verdict is overwhelming : if the Conservatives were wise, they'd pick Murdo Fraser

Here are the results of the poll on who it would be in the Conservatives' best interests to elect as their leader -

Murdo Fraser 92%
Ruth Davidson 3%
Margaret Mitchell 1%
Jackson Carlaw 1%

This is in stark contrast to the weekly polls by Tory Hoose (which presumably have mostly been voted on by Tory members and sympathisers) showing a very close race between Fraser and Davidson. The latest one, as of this moment, shows Davidson leading by 45% to 42%. If that was anything like the actual result on first preferences (indeed, even if Davidson was slightly behind) it's hard to see where the lower preferences will come from to push Fraser to victory, given that Mitchell and Carlaw are presumably attracting supporters who are even more 'conservative' on the subject of the party's future than Davidson's. Unless, of course, as Tris suggested a few weeks ago, they have such antiquated views on personal morality that they simply can't bring themselves to give even a second or third preference to a young woman who is openly in a same-sex relationship.

Poll : If they were wise, who would the Scottish Conservatives elect as their new leader?

We're now getting to the business end of the bitterly-fought Tory leadership contest. Tory Hoose has been conducting weekly polls of its readership (showing a very tight race between Murdo Fraser and Ruth Davidson), but I thought it might be fun to get an 'outside view' as well. I've deliberately framed the question to ask about what is in the Scottish Tories' own interests, not the interests of any other party, or of Scotland itself for that matter. I'm also not going to let you off the hook with a "who cares?" option, because I know from past experience that would win by a mile!

The voting form can be found in the sidebar, and the poll will close in a couple of days.

Is 'Glaswegian' a euphemism for 'non-Tory'?

I must admit I'm becoming slightly addicted to Tory Hoose. Maybe it's just the 'excitement' of the leadership election. A couple of observations in the report on the latest hustings (entitled, presumably without irony, 'Oh, What a Night') raised a smile -

"Second up was Ruth Davidson who, it’s fair to say, had a pretty bumpy ride due to a small contigent of hostile Glaswegians"

Note that it's not "hostile members of the audience", but "hostile Glaswegians". Are we supposed to infer that "Glaswegian" is convenient shorthand for "gatecrashing non-Tory oik"?

"Margaret did however slip up over a question asked about re-engaging the under 35’s within the party. Margaret’s response was a bit off the cuff when she spoke about modern studies students attending her launch and 3 or 4 younger members being in the audience. All very good points however the modern studies students can’t vote and there are hundreds of thousands of under 35’s across the country."

In exactly what sense were they "all very good points", then?

Elsewhere in 'the Hoose', we learn Murdo Fraser's top ten pledges to the party. This is number 3 -

"Bring back real debate and votes on policy at our Party Conferences"

That sounds eminently sensible, but I'm intrigued by the use of the word 'back'. When have Tory conferences north or south of the border ever featured meaningful debates or votes? Maybe he just means moving away from debates on motions such as -

"This conference is mesemerised by David's maaaaaahvellous leadership and hereby pledges itself not to fret about matters of state that are clearly in such maaaaaahvellous hands. And can we just say how maaaaaahvellous Samantha's hair is looking today..."

What a heavy burden is a name that has become too famous

As much as I think Murdo Fraser is on the right track in trying to dispense with the Scottish Tories' toxic brand and to gain autonomy from the London party, it's clear that a lot more thought is going to be required on what the new name should actually be. The suggestions leaked at the weekend were for the most part pretty awful. Let's go through them in turn -

Scotland First

A campaign slogan, not a party name. Also utterly vacuous.

The Caledonians

A folk-band that seems unlikely to rival the popularity of The Corries. And can you imagine the fun Alex Salmond would have?

Scottish Unionists or Progressive Conservatives

These have the huge disadvantanges of not actually being name changes - the words 'Conservative' and 'Unionist' both feature in the current name. So either one would be a monumental waste of time if the object of the exercise is to banish the toxic brand. In particular, 'Progressive Conservatives' (a name presumably borrowed from the ill-fated Canadian party) would be extremely easily shortened to 'Conservatives', and before you know it you'd be back to 'the Tories' in popular usage. And the possibility that a reborn Scottish Unionist Party would be seen as an 'Orange' party is hardly the 'slight' concern that some Tory sources seem to think it is.

The Scottish Progressives

The Tories may not like it, but as an unqualified term "progressive" is associated with the left, so this choice would attract confusion and derision in equal measure. Unless, of course, they actually become 'progressive' as a party, but I'm not holding my breath.

Scottish Reform Party

Probably the least worst of the six in the sense that it's at least a meaningful declaration of intent, but it still sets my teeth on edge because it's almost certainly the wrong sort of intent for a centre-right party in Scotland - I think we can all imagine the kind of 'reform' that is implied. Still, I suppose we should be grateful that no-one has (as yet) suggested going down the uber-Thatcherite/Bushite route of calling it the 'Scottish Freedom Party'.

So if not any of the current suggestions, then what? Whisper it gently, but a good way for the party to demonstrate that it has genuinely changed is not to be afraid to borrow ideas from continental Europe. The ubiquitous 'Christian Democrat' name for centre-right parties can be safely ruled out in an increasingly secular country like ours, but why not 'Scottish People's Party'? (A touch of irony there, given Labour's outdated self-image, but that's no bad thing.) Or they could look to the example of the party that leads the centre-right coalition in Sweden, and call themselves the 'Scottish Moderates'. Although, again, it would help enormously if their policies were as moderate as the name.

Doing a Portillo?

It's a sure sign of just how completely I managed to switch off from Scottish politics while I was in Italy that I've only just caught up with the news (from fifteen days ago!) that Murdo Fraser wants (seemingly, possibly, ambiguously) to replace the Scottish Tory party with a new, autonomous, unashamedly pro-devolution centre-right force. This, it should go without saying, is the first semblance of strategic sense we've heard from a leading Scottish Tory since...oooh, about 1982, and is also a very rare instance of the interests of the Tories and of Scotland coinciding. The fact that the idea has brought Alan Cochrane out in a rash is testament enough to that.

But initially I couldn't help wondering if Fraser was making the same fatal mistake that Michael Portillo made ten years ago, ie. expounding his radical plans for change during the leadership campaign, rather than following the more cynical Blair path of saying nothing very much during the campaign, and then bouncing the party into an internal revolution immediately afterwards. However, that comparison doesn't quite work - the leader of the Scottish Tories isn't the master of all he or she surveys in the way that a UK party leader is, and therefore Fraser needs his clear-cut mandate for a new party from the word go. So he's doing the right thing, and for all our sakes we can only hope that Kate Higgins' confident forecast from a few weeks ago that Ruth Davidson was near-enough certain to win was wrong. Personally, I think Ms Davidson is a touch on the insufferable side anyway, but when has that ever been a barrier to rising to the top of the Scottish Tory ranks?

Cammo : Fanboy meets frit-boy

There seems to be something about responding to Angus Robertson in the Commons that leads to David Cameron leaving his self-awareness at home.  I thought nothing could top his sneering reply a few weeks ago on the closure of the RAF bases - "you won't be flying planes, you'll be flying...(snigger)...by the seat of your pants!!!" - but he somehow managed it at PMQs yesterday.  Not content with doing what the public loathe most and simply ignoring the actual content of Robertson's question, he launched into this spectacularly ill-conceived attempt at 'humour' -

"I think you can topple those with an SNP that said they were going to have a referendum on independence but never did.  As a predecessor of mine once said - frit."

Yep, there's nothing like a fanboy Thatcher Tribute Gag to have the people of Scotland laughing in the aisles.  But let me just see if I'm missing something here.  Of the five parties and one independent represented in the Scottish Parliament, the SNP, Greens and Margo MacDonald all favour a referendum.  By way of contrast, and in spite of their claimed certainty that independence would be soundly defeated, the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and Labour are all implacably opposed to a democratic vote on the matter, and used their combined parliamentary majority to block one from taking place last year.  Moreover, the last time I checked, David Cameron was the leader of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, and was not, in fact, the leader of either of the pro-referendum parties.

That being the case, was it really the wisest idea to invite the electorate to ponder the rather telling question of "fritness"?

When the facts don't change, Dave changes his mind

I seem to recall that in the run-up to the general election I made the point that, while on the whole a Labour-led government would be the lesser of two evils, there was one narrow sense in which a Tory victory would be preferable - it might just spare Gary McKinnon the horror of extradition to America. But I also noted that I wouldn't exactly faint with amazement if, once in office, the Tories rediscovered their servile pro-American instincts, and did a complete U-turn on the subject.

Well, if Cathy Newman's reading of the situation on Channel 4 News is to be believed, it seems those words were prophetic. Cameron's position now appears to be identical to Brown's (private) pre-election stance that McKinnon should be extradited, but perhaps be allowed to serve his sentence in the UK. And what startling new facts have emerged that could possibly explain this extraordinarily swift change of heart? Only one that I can see - there is no longer an election in the offing.

As it turns out, then, there was no reason at all for preferring a Tory-led government. In a strange way, that's quite reassuring.

Are David's little helpers about to go large?

The Independent is reporting that the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats are toying with the idea of a pact in the event of a Yes vote in the AV referendum, meaning that each party would urge its supporters to give a second preference vote to the other -

"Some Tory MPs are advocating such an agreement to keep Labour out of power. Although Liberal Democrat MPs are more cautious, they admit a pact would be a possibility if the Coalition proves successful."

Have these Lib Dem MPs even taken ten seconds to think this through? The only thing that could begin to make it worth their while to agree to such a deal would be a commitment from the Tories that the coalition would continue regardless of whether they won a majority in their own right - and yet history shows a coalition in such circumstances is barely worth having for the junior party. The reason? Quite simply that the Lib Dems would have no bargaining power left at all - it would be a coalition that stands or falls entirely at the Tories' discretion. The two parties could draw up the most solemn and theoretically binding partnership agreement in the world, but the Lib Dems' own betrayal over tuition fees shows just how much such commitments are worth once the cold reality of the parliamentary arithmetic makes itself felt. If the coalition breaks up in this parliament, the Tories know they risk losing power instantly - but what would they be risking by breaking a coalition deal if they had a majority anyway?

The paradox is that, under AV, urging Lib Dem voters to give a second preference to the Tories may well - at least in some circumstances - make a meaningful coalition less likely, and a Tory majority that would freeze out the Lib Dems far more likely. The phrase "David's little helpers" is already rather apt, but I trust they wouldn't be so tactically inept as to take the assistance to this gratuitous new level.

Moray's punishment for voting SNP?

I'm starting to wonder if my old sparring-partner, Aberdeenshire Tory activist ChristinaD, is finally losing what little there was left of the plot. A few hours ago, she launched this astonishing attack on the SNP and the people of Moray for daring to take issue with the likely closures of RAF Kinloss and RAF Lossiemouth -

"The lying littel toe rag!! [She means Alex Salmond.] You have a constituency with not one, but two airbases. You demand a commitment from the UNITED KINGDOM MOD to fund and keep open both bases. You have an economic meltdown and the Nimrods grounded. And you even have someone launch an inquiry into the economic importance of these airbases.

So what do the electorate of Moray do, they could vote for anyone of three various Union/MOD/UK military presence supporters. Or anyone who might actually get voted into government with the accompanying power or influence. But they didn’t, they voted SNP. Yep, they voted for independence. And the very ‘independent’ SNP MP vowed to fight for the Westminster government to retain its presence in his constituency. You cannot buy that kind of hypocrisy."

Rather startled by the implications of this outburst, I asked her if she was really saying that people had been punished by the Tories for voting the 'wrong' way. She was in a hole, but did she stop digging?

"You have to love the Scottish way of life. You can stick two fingers up at the United Kingdom, but if the United Kingdom takes you at your word, they are punishing you."

Now I fully appreciate that Christina is not an official Tory spokeswoman (more's the pity for all the other parties) but even so, if this vindictive attitude towards the electorate is at all typical of their activists, it's little wonder they've got such an enduring problem in Scotland.

Incidentally, implying that the SNP aren't allowed to believe in military bases simply because an independent Scotland wouldn't be part of the British armed forces is approximately as silly as saying that the SNP aren't allowed to believe in postal delivery because an independent Scotland wouldn't be part of the British Royal Mail.

Does anyone recall something called "the respect agenda"? Run that past me again?

David Cameron's reference to the Megrahi release in his conference speech (courtesy of the Caledonian Mercury) -

"There are some red lines which we must never cross...the sight of that man responsible for the Lockerbie bombing being set free to get a hero’s welcome in Tripoli. No. It was wrong. It undermined our standing in the world. Nothing like that must ever happen again."

Leaving aside the irritating Blair-like 'stream of consciousness' party trick of trying to make it sound as if the sheer gravity of the subject has only just struck him mid-passage, it has to be said that Cameron is moving on to very, very dangerous territory with this rhetoric. It simply isn't possible for London politicians to credibly claim that they "respect" the devolution settlement unless they also accept that decisions that they personally feel are wrong not only can happen again, but almost certainly will, and indeed should. The powers transferred under the Scotland Act were not conditional upon being used in a way consistent with arbitrary "red lines" dreamt up by a Tory leader to win cheap applause at his party conference.

Was it legitimate for Cameron to attack his political opponents for a controversial decision? Absolutely. But to suggest that it must 'never' be 'allowed' to happen again, in order to protect 'our' interests...well, that sounds suspiciously like a threat, and one rooted in the hubris of an almost colonial mindset.

The SNP are like Cheryl Cole : they don't need a parachute

And so, with a single press release, the SNP have put an end to one of my theories from a few weeks ago - there is clearly now no chance whatever of a full-scale coalition with the Tories after the election in May. In one sense, to rule that possibility out so unequivocally seems a trifle rash, given that it provides the most plausible route by which the SNP might be able to remain in power if they slip to second place. It's also worth pointing out that their Welsh sister party Plaid Cymru have no such bar on coalition with the Tories, and indeed came within a whisker of forming one in 2007. So the SNP have consciously made a choice they didn't have to make - they've cut away their own safety-net, and ensured they will almost certainly have to defeat Labour outright next May to hold on to power.

It's not hard to see why they've done it, though, since the election battle will to a large extent be fought over which party can best stand up for Scotland against a Tory-led government at Westminster - hence the suggestion in the press release that it's Labour who are quietly keeping their options open and might well consider a deal with the Tories. The supporting evidence cited is that there is a Labour/Tory coalition in no fewer than five of Scotland's 32 councils, and that since 2007 Labour have voted with the Tories in the Scottish Parliament more often than the SNP. Now, in the literal sense, that's a bit thin - while Labour's irrational hatred of the SNP would probably lead them instinctively to favour coalition with the Tories if that was the only way of keeping the Nationalists out (hence what's happened in the councils), they nevertheless have a fiction of anti-Tory purity to maintain to keep their own electorate onside, and that would almost certainly preclude any chance of a formal coalition with the Tories at Holyrood. As for the parliamentary voting record, it is of course much easier for opposition parties to find common cause against something than it is for any opposition party to vote with the government in favour of a specific proposal. Such statistical analyses are therefore very crude - but Labour can hardly complain about their use in this case. They have, after all, spent much of the last decade-and-a-bit using voodoo statistics to peddle the fantasy of a de facto SNP/Tory alliance, both at Holyrood and at Westminster.

Child benefit : is Clegg the new Macavity?

Liberal Democrat blogger Caron rightly expresses her irritation that the cut in child benefit was announced at the Conservative party conference, rather than to parliament. But it begs the obvious question - what did the Tories actually have to gain from doing it this way? Surely you save your conference speech 'rabbits out of the hat' for things that are actually going to be popular with the electorate? Apart from anything else, it conveniently lets the Liberal Democrats off the hook. Since the coalition was formed, the Tories have gone out of their way to ensure that the Lib Dems were fully locked into the cuts narrative, with it being left to David Laws (remember him?) to itemise the early 'savings' with ill-disguised relish. But tonight, the only questions seemingly being asked are how this Tory cut will play with the Tory-leaning electorate, and how the Tory rank-and-file feel about it.

A cynic might almost suspect that this was a deal cooked up between Clegg and Cameron - you can have your cut, but this time you can take the (initial) heat for it yourself. If so, there are of course only so many times that trick can be pulled before Clegg starts to take on an old mantle of Gordon Brown's - as this government's "Macavity".

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Iain Martin on Newsnight : "the Tories have forgotten where the middle is".

Now, there are a great many reasons why abandoning universal child benefit may be extremely unwise, but one of them is not that a £45,000+ salary for an individual somehow represents a "middle income". Memo to all politicians - please feel free to "forget" things that aren't actually true. Regardless of the best efforts of right-wing hacks to "remind" you of them later on.

American views on compassion are based on "emerging evidence"

USA Today has published an opinion piece on the Megrahi case, which (as you can probably guess without even reading it) is full of the now-familiar ignorance and innuendo. They do, to be fair, reprint Alex Salmond's first letter to John Kerry as an 'opposing view' - although, mysteriously, it's very heavily edited. Anyway, I decided to leave my own comment...

"Perhaps Libya has a better hospice system than anyone realized, or perhaps Megrahi's failing body was revitalized by the hero's welcome he received when he returned home."

Or perhaps USA Today should have read the statement Kenny MacAskill made when he released Megrahi, making abundantly clear that it was possible he might live longer than three months. That was merely a reasonable estimate, based on the best medical evidence from impartial doctors. That's right - doctors. Not prophets.

"Emerging evidence suggests the release was, at best, based on misguided notions of sympathy and bad medical advice; at worst, it involved a sleazy deal by British businesses — including, yes, BP — to improve commercial ties with Libya."

What evidence? At what point did it "emerge"? This is the whole problem with much of the US media on this story - and indeed with many of your politicians. It's as if you just have to say the words "evidence" and "suspicions" often enough and that'll do to be getting on with. For the four Senators (who as Alex Massie has identified have been peddling almost laughable inaccuracies about this story from the beginning) it's apparently sufficient to point out that there is an awful lot of "coincidence" at play in this case. Well, I'll tell you the biggest coincidence of all - Megrahi just happened to become gravely ill at a time when BP were lobbying for the PTA to be concluded. By the senators' logic, does that mean God was also nobbled by BP?

In any case, how can there be "emerging evidence" that the compassion shown to Megrahi was "misguided"? If you think the values Scots Law is founded on are wrong, that's fine, but it's also an utterly subjective opinion, of no greater or lesser validity than anyone else's. It's not based on evidence, "emerging" or otherwise. An abuse of the language, by any standards.

Finally, if the only link anyone can find between the Scottish government and BP is a single ill-advised letter from Lord Trefgarne, expressly written on his own behalf as a member of the House of Lords as much as on behalf of a council of which BP is only one member, then this conspiracy theory really is looking pretty threadbare. That letter, incidentally, says a good deal more about Trefgarne - a senior member of David Cameron's Conservative Party - than it does about Kenny MacAskill, who I'm quite sure read it dutifully and then promptly disregarded it.

Love is proving blind for some Tories

Reading through the comments on this post on ConservativeHome about the possibility of the Liberal Democrats pulling the plug on the coalition, it suddenly struck me just how far some Conservative supporters have fallen in love with the idea of the leading Lib Dems being their ideological soulmates - and of course there's nothing like the intensity of a passion that breaks into the open after being suppressed for so long. But I fear the infatuation may be causing these Tory posters to lose their sense of perspective somewhat on where the Liberal Democrat ministers' ultimate loyalties lie. (The same phenomenon has been on open display at Political Betting for weeks.) They seem to take it as a given that the Clegg/Laws wing of the party wouldn't think twice about sticking with the coalition, even if it meant the party rupturing and the left flank breaking off, either to join forces with Labour, or to form an independent social liberal alternative to both the coalition and Labour.

It seems to me that only a Tory could possibly feel that senior Lib Dems' loyalty to the coalition is - and ought to be - stronger than their loyalty to the integrity and future viability of their own party. I have no doubt Nick Clegg is philosophically very close to the Tories and desperately wants to see out the coalition's five-year term if at all possible - but on the other hand I doubt if he's keen on being the Lib Dems' Ramsay MacDonald or David Owen. If he was, he'd hardly have stuck so scrupulously to the party's laborious internal procedures during the coalition negotiations - in spite of the likes of Paddy Ashdown earlier branding them unimportant.

If the grass roots of the Lib Dems and a large chunk of the parliamentary party force Nick Clegg to choose between them and a realignment of the centre-right in British politics, I suspect (and, admittedly, hope) there'll only be one possible answer.

Are the tectonic plates shifting?

A very interesting post by Tory blogger Dean MacKinnon-Thomson, referring to a Sunday Times article which apparently suggests that elements within the Scottish Conservative party are warming to the idea of coalition with the SNP after next year's election, even if it means a referendum on independence. Not having paid my Murdoch levy, I haven't read the article in question so I can't judge for myself, but if there's some truth to this suggestion it could yet be a vital lifeline for the SNP. I'm beginning to worry about the spectre of 1994/5 - ie. the SNP receiving a high share of the vote but still being unable to outpoll Labour, due to the extreme unpopularity of the Tory government at Westminster.

But if the worst happens and Labour do emerge with the most seats next May, it would probably take more than an SNP-Tory combination to form a non-Labour governing majority. Although he doesn't spell this out, I get the impression that Dean feels the Lib Dems would go along with what their Westminster coalition partners want. I'm not sure it's anything like as clear-cut as that, with the Scottish Lib Dems especially troubled about the long-term consequences of being perceived as Tory 'collaborators'. Of course, it would be equally hard in the circumstances for them to do a deal with Labour (indeed Labour might not even entertain the idea), so it would be fascinating to see which way they jump.

Co-Go No-Go for Con-Dem-Nation

Via Iain Dale's Diary, a rather bizarre rant from a Tory blogger about Tim Farron's observation that the coalition is not a natural ideological fit -

"Farron who has lashed out at the Co-Go in a recent BBC interview, is clearly in denial over his parties permanent ties to the Tories."

First point - "Co-Go"? I've heard of Con-Dems and even Con-Dem-Nation, but if we're going to have a new abbreviation every other week it's going to get slightly dizzying. I can only assume this one stands for "Conservative Government", and if that's the typical perception of a Tory member it's hardly surprising Lib Dems are becoming ever more uneasy.

Second point - I suspect even those Lib Dems most passionately committed to the coalition will be somewhat startled to learn that their party now has "permanent ties" to the Tories!

Cam'n'Clegg face the audience with a fantastical false choice

Back in the days when Paul Merton had his own Channel 4 show, he recounted the story of how a woman had reacted to someone advancing republican views. "You don't want the Queen? So what do you want, then? Hitler?"

"You can't really argue with stupidity like that," Merton mused.

For some reason those words popped into my head as I was watching the performance of Nick Clegg and David Cameron on the hastily-arranged Face the Audience show. They were both determined to present us with an utterly fantastical false choice - either you accept every last dot and comma of the Budget, or you do absolutely nothing, and don't tackle the deficit at all, with all the problems that would cause down the line. Anyone would think VAT was the only tax that could possibly have been raised, or that there is some kind of legal cap on how much bankers can be penalised for their wrongdoing, and on how far the wealthy more generally can be asked to pay their fair share.

Clegg said at one point that he was sure he spoke for David Cameron in reassuring us that if only it had been possible to claw in all the necessary funds by hitting the bankers alone, that's what the coalition would have done in a trice. Well, I'm absolutely certain he doesn't speak for Cameron in saying that, and frankly I'm dubious about whether he even speaks for himself.

It struck me watching the programme that, if this government is going to survive its full five year term, there is going to have to be some kind of relaxation (even if only an informal one) of the normal principle of collective responsibility. Cameron and Clegg were both essentially defending a Tory Budget tonight, so it's no surprise that Clegg looked the most ill-at-ease. Liberal Democrat supporters looking for reassurance that the coalition has been worthwhile will have wanted to hear their leader say "OK, this is not exactly what we wanted to happen, but coalition is a constant compromise and we've been able to offset some of the worst effects". Instead, they saw him dying in a ditch trying to defend the Tory policies he was berating just a few weeks ago.

One point on which I can commend the government, however, is their apparent determination to stand firm on the ring-fencing of the overseas aid budget. A member of the audience tonight trotted out the now familiar suggestion (previously advanced by the likes of Irwin Stelzer) that much of that budget is poorly-targeted. That's undoubtedly true, which is an argument for making sure that every pound of the very small proportion of national wealth set aside for international development is properly prioritised and helps those who actually need it most. It's not an argument for clawing the wasted money back to the exchequer. If there's one group of people more vulnerable than those clobbered in Britain by George Osborne this week, it's the poorest of the poor in Third World countries.

Lesson of the day : never rely on a Liberal Democrat to defuse a bombshell

It's slightly surreal to think that it was just a few weeks ago that the Liberal Democrats were unveiling 1992-style posters, warning of the Tories' devastating "tax bombshell". This was a direct reference to the "plans" - denied in non-denial fashion by David Cameron - to increase the rate of VAT, and it triggered a furious attempt by journalists such as Andrew Neil to force Lib Dem spokesmen to acknowledge that the Tories were in fact "planning" no such thing. The response was that, while the Tories weren't openly admitting their intentions, nothing but a hike in VAT could ever make their sums add up.

Well, one good thing can now be said for the Lib Dems - they were completely right and Andrew Neil was completely wrong, but given the circumstances I don't think that's going to do them a lot of good. Perhaps I just missed the small print on those billboards saying "but, hey, we love Tory tax bombshells!".

UPDATE : Until I saw this photo, I'd completely forgotten that the ill-fated billboard launch took place in Scotland. Tavish Scott does seem to have an uncanny knack of finding himself in the wrong place at the wrong time (eg. Jack McConnell's government). Still, at least Charles Kennedy can hold his head up high.

No knee-jerk changes, absolutely - but the Tories' instincts are in the wrong place on gun control

So now we know - extraordinarily, this was yet another massacre perpetrated with legally-owned weapons. So, for all the protestations from the usual suspects about how it's the illegal guns that are the problem - nope, gun control laws really do make a difference. If Derrick Bird had not been licensed to own a shotgun it seems perfectly reasonable to assume that many of his victims would still be alive.

There was remarkable consensus tonight on Question Time on the issue of possible further tightening of the law, with Leanne Wood of Plaid Cymru making the point that shotguns are in a different category to handguns as they are a legitimate tool for people who work in rural areas. However, I was mildly encouraged to hear the coalition's (as I suppose we must now call him) David Willetts hint that the door had not been completely closed on further legislation, if after a period of reflection it is deemed necessary. David Cameron had earlier given a very different impression when he suggested that the problem here was not the weapon, but the fact that someone had just 'snapped' - a factor that cannot possibly be legislated for. Now, where have I heard that counsel of despair before? From a purely practical point of view, the idea that Bird's 'snap' would have had such lethal consequences - and on such a scale - had he not been a licensed gun owner is simply not credible.

Quite honestly, it should be no surprise to anyone to discover where the Tories' instincts are on this subject - although the post-Hungerford and post-Dunblane legislation was passed on their watch, it was overwhelming public opinion that had left them with little choice. Not that London Labour were any quicker to act on the scourge of airguns, of course. Let's hope that the Calman recommendations on devolving control of airguns to the Scottish Parliament are included in the legislation to be tabled in the autumn - and it wouldn't be a bad idea if responsibility for all gun control was transferred at the same time.

David Came, Ron (more's the pity)

International lawyer and Liberal Democrat supporter Philippe Sands spoke for millions last night when he said it had been a "gut-wrenching moment" to watch David Cameron on the steps of 10 Downing Street due to his own party's blessing. For myself, although of course there was the fascination of being able to witness a transfer of power at Westminster for only the second time, I just had an overwhelming sense of a country moving backwards. In a way it's reminiscent of George W Bush coming to power at the worst possible moment - a slightly unfair observation, perhaps, as no-one would doubt Cameron's intellect and articulateness, but all the same he does boast a bona fide neocon in his cabinet.

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Ironically, one of the 'political reform' concessions wrought from the Conservatives by their new coalition partners is one that - in a way - makes Britain a less democratic country than it was before. Fixed-term parliaments are an excellent idea in principle, but five years? Given that five years is currently the absolute maximum and that many parliaments finish earlier than that, this plan simply means that the public will be consulted on who should rule them even less frequently than they are at present. How is that progress? It should have been four years at most, although Australia gets along quite happily with three - and I sometimes think the Chartists had it right all along. Annual general elections to keep them on their toes.

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I may be proved wrong, but Danny Alexander seems a poor choice for Secretary of State for Scotland. Things have come to a pretty pass when the only way the Tories can find a Scottish spokesman that people will listen to is by appointing a Liberal Democrat! Alexander actually comes across as quite a hesitant communicator, and the public have every right to be somewhat baffled that Clegg has put him up for the role, in place of Alistair Carmichael who performed so well in two out of the three TV debates. It's hard to escape the conclusion Clegg is appointing people based on obsequious loyalty to him personally rather than on merit.

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When I pondered the effect on Holyrood voting patterns of a Con/Lib Dem deal, I completely overlooked the impact it might have on what happens after the 2011 election, ie. on potential coalition negotiations. My guess is that the Lib Dems will argue that a Westminster deal makes no difference at devolved level and that it's still business as usual - but things might look very different on the other side of the net. If Labour now plan to (risibly) paint themselves as the 'only remaining progressive party', it's difficult to see how they would credibly square that with a new coalition with the Lib Dems at Holyrood. It's far too early to say, but I just wonder if the Scottish electorate might next year be presented with a de facto straight choice between two potential minority governments - SNP or Labour.

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A couple of posters on the previous thread suggested that the SNP had made a tactical error by not focusing on independence during the campaign. It's a point that can be argued either way - perhaps the Scottish public weren't quite ready to listen to those arguments. But with the Tories back in power, people will certainly be open to listening now, which should at least settle question marks over strategy. To (slightly) misquote Winnie Ewing - "we're all fundamentalists now".