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?

'There will always be a United Kingdom'

In this whole debate about "independence-lite" that has suddenly sprung up, one catchphrase that is really beginning to get on my nerves (purely on the grounds of a lack of accuracy and linguistic precision) is Professor James Mitchell's "there will always be a United Kingdom in some form", which he repeated again tonight on Michael Portillo's documentary about Alex Salmond. Portillo was evidently so taken by it that he used it himself on This Week last Thursday.

Stripping away all the speculation about how a new confederal arrangement with the rest of Britain might work, I presume what Mitchell is really getting at is simply that the SNP support the retention of the monarchy. But that doesn't in itself assure the United Kingdom of a future. After all, we currently have the same Queen as Canada, New Zealand and Jamaica - does that mean these countries are all part of the "United Kingdom"? Of course not. The constitutional relationship between the different Commonwealth realms is, to all intents and purposes, what used to be described as a 'personal union' - different kingdoms ruled by the same monarch. (And of course the concept of being 'ruled' is a purely nominal one in the age of constitutional monarchy.) That's almost certainly the model an independent Scotland - whether of the 'lite' or 'full fat' variety - would follow.

Scotland is not a nation, advises Rod Liddle

It was a slightly peculiar experience watching the discussion on Scottish independence on Wednesday night's Dinner With Portillo, with the only person I really had to cheer on being a decidedly right-of-centre historian. I must admit, though, that although I may not have agreed with Michael Fry on every point, he is a very effective and passionate debater, and given the circumstances thank heavens he was there. The most bizarre segment of the programme offered us yet another unwelcome opportunity to take a wander around the frightening terrain that is Rod Liddle's psyche. "Scotland is NOT a nation," he thundered repeatedly. You might assume such a startling claim would be backed up with a sophisticated and considered argument, but instead what we got was - "on the east coast of Scotland they speak like Northumbrians, on the west coast they speak Gay-lick". Yes, I must admit every time I visit Dundee I really have to pinch myself to remember I'm nowhere near Lindisfarne, and come the weekend I enjoy nothing more than a trip to Troon to sample the very best the Gàidhealtachd has to offer. Seriously, though, is Liddle really offering up the continued survival of one of Scotland's indigenous languages as evidence that Scotland is less of a nation than it would otherwise be?

Vernon Bogdanor is of course a much weightier figure than Liddle, but even he seems to be stuck in the nineteenth century, talking of his "regret" that Ireland left the United Kingdom. You'd think he might have got over it by now. Underlying this of course is the stubborn idea amongst some traditionalist unionist thinkers that it would have been a more desirable outcome had Home Rule for Ireland headed off calls for full independence. That seems an utterly incredible worldview to hold in 2010 - does Bogdanor also think devolution for India within the UK would have been a more rational, progressive outcome in 1947?

The Kellner conundrum

Michael Portillo was widely ridiculed on Thursday night for suggesting that the Tories' 44% showing wasn't good enough, and that they "should be doing better" if they wanted to win the general election. At the time, I thought the rubbishing of this claim was entirely justified - after all, the Conservatives' lead of 44% to 24% looks remarkably similar to the 47%-25% lead Labour enjoyed in 1995 in the run-up to securing a record parliamentary majority of 179 in 1997. Anthony King (not my favourite psephologist, a subject I may return to another day) confirmed that a 20 point Tory lead in local elections has few historical precedents.

But now Peter Kellner of the polling company YouGov has muddied the waters by suggesting that, in real terms, Gordon Brown's 24% is somehow less bad than John Major's 25% in 1995. This is because, he claims, Labour tend to under-perform in local elections when compared to general elections, while the Liberal Democrats tend to over-perform. This has left me deeply confused. The point about the Lib Dems is undoubtedly true, but surely it's the incumbent government - whether Labour or Tory - that tends to see its vote depressed? Is there really a separate phenomenon that hurts Labour regardless of whether they find themselves in government or opposition? If I ever have a spare month or two, I might try to wade through the figures and work it out.