Priority must be locking SNP out of power

THE technical term for Jackson Carlaw’s margin of victory is ‘absolutely stonking’. Ruth Davidson’s former deputy has been elected Scottish Conservative leader with a towering 76 per cent of the vote.

Some of his supporters worried about Right-wing rival Michelle Ballantyne breaking through the 40 per cent barrier with her focus on ‘blue-collar conservatism’. Carlaw resolved to remain in the centre-ground and Conservative members repaid his moderation.

Now comes the hard part. Carlaw has 447 days to convince Scots he can be the next resident of Bute House. As Margaret Thatcher said when Labour tried to spin Neil Kinnock as ‘the prime minister in waiting’: ‘He might have quite a wait.’

Certainly, a Tory victory does not look on the cards next year but the more realistic goal of denying the SNP and the Greens an overall majority is still up for grabs. Achieving it will not be easy and will take the Conservatives into unfamiliar territory but the political bounty is the stalling of the SNP juggernaut.

Carlaw and his team are itching to overhaul party policy and one of his first announcements as leader was a review into the Tories’ pitch to the punters.

WILLINGNESS to accept and rectify when key policies don’t fly is a healthy course of action for a party but every policy ditched has to be replaced.

One policy seen by many as a roadblock to further progress by the party is opposition to ‘free’ university education, a totemic pledge for the SNP that its opponents have failed to turn the tide of public opinion against.

Could we see the Scottish Tories ditch this electoral millstone and figure that, since the other parties are bribing people with their own money, they should do the same? The deciders in the upper echelons of the party should think long and hard about any such approach.

Turn the Scottish Tories into a pale imitation of the SNP – a managerial populist party that doesn’t really stand for anything – and you turn the 2021 election into a choice between Nicola Sturgeon’s party and a party mimicking Nicola Sturgeon’s party. Coca-Cola vs Tesco cola.

That doesn’t mean the Tories can’t learn from the SNP, but picking up tips is very different from turning your party into an SNP tribute act that prefers its own material on the constitution. The Tories cannot be Nationalists for the Union. Echoing the SNP’s tax and spend policies also means having to set out how you will pay for them.

If the Tories did, for example, reverse their position on tuition fees, what about covering the significant outlay involved? We saw in the General Election what voters think of parties who promise the Earth while reassuring them that they wouldn’t have to pay any more for it. It is a question of credibility.

Another reason why looting past SNP manifestos is illadvised is that these are exciting times for the centre-right. Opportunities abound to fashion a 21st century conservatism that appeals to people from all backgrounds and income levels.

Boris Johnson has shown the way by convincing working-class communities in the north of England to vote Tory for the first time ever. In some ways, Michelle Ballantyne articulated this with her campaign talk about ‘bluecollar conservatism’.

Many voters who have traditionally gone for Labour or the SNP find themselves voting for parties whose elites are completely at odds with their own social conservatism. The Tories can’t offer them something new if they’re too busy imitating their old parties.

Carlaw needs to weave a conservatism that keeps the grassroots happy, makes sense to ordinary Conservative voters, and chimes with the values of the voters he needs to win over.

Of course, this will not be without its trials but the reward is a bigger, stronger Conservative Party that, one day down the line, could challenge the SNP for the keys to Bute House.

Some hard decisions lie ahead.

One of them is on talent. Bluntly, the Scottish Tories don’t have enough of it.

A Tory seat at Holyrood is not for life and that attitude must be resisted. The Scottish Tories must be on their toes, ready to pounce on every failing of the Nationalist government. There is still too much dead wood and Carlaw will have to cut it away.

NO less important is the question of the Union. Carlaw should continue his party’s defence of the Union but he might do well to turn down the volume a notch.

No one is in any doubt that the Tories are the party of the Union but now the country needs to hear what else they care about.

Floating voters looking in on the party for the first time in years – or the first time ever – are confronted by endless chat about the Union, independence and referendums. The Scottish Tories have to be for more than opposition to what others say.

Jackson Carlaw is a capable politician who has proved himself many times over at First Minister’s Questions. He knows how to needle the Scottish Government and how to pin down evasive rhetoric from the First Minister. But he will need more than waspish one-liners and well-timed questions now.

Now he needs to bring down Nicola Sturgeon’s party while building up his own, preparing the Scottish Tories (however long-term a consideration it might be) for that dreamed-of but thus far elusive prize: a term in government.