Andrew is an editor of Tory Hoose and was the 2011 Holyrood Candidate for Almond Valley. Previously Andrew has stood for local government in Midlothian West in 2007 and Loanhead in 2005. He is a former constituency association chair and is the current CF Scotland South Scotland Region Officer. Follow Andrew on Twitter Read more from this author

One factor was instrumental in the SNP’s rise to victory in May’s election, and that was the SNP’s ability to attract voters from all of the main parties. While we saw the Tory vote fall slightly due to voters switching to the SNP, this was no where near as dramatic she quantities of labour supporters switching to the SNP http://news.scotsman.com/scottishlabourparty/Inside-politics-Former-Labour-voters.6792716.jp  (a fact that was masked from a delusional labour party thanks to Lib Dem’s who switched to labour) While it is naive to attribute this entirely to tactical voting, there was clear a desire amongst Scottish voters to keep Labour out of office.

The Tories didn’t help their cause running round telling everyone how well we got on with the SNP, this was little more than an endorsement of Salmond’s gang sending  out a message to Tory supporters that voting SNP wouldn’t do the Tories any harm. It looked like we preferred the Nationalists to the Nasty Reds. But it goes deeper than this, for years now Tory leaning people have been too willing to lend their support to the SNP, as the best placed party to keep labour out, or as a sort of almost centre right alternative to those wishing to protest against the current leadership. These voters led to the original ‘Tartan Tory’ name attached to the SNP.

But now things have changed, the SNP have a majority and they are pushing their unpopular and divisive separatism policy. This is like a bucket of cold water over the sleeping heads of many voters who never expected the SNP to win outright, it is a wakeup call to many Tories who leant their support to the SNP and we need to reach out to them and give them a reason to come back. Conservatives need to develop a proper regional vote strategy and remind voters that no matter how safe a labour or SNP seat that they live in, they can still help elected conservatives. This becomes even more important in local elections, where with a weakening of the Lib Dem support, the tories have a real opportunity to make progress at local government level right across Scotland. There is a new breed of younger ambitious candidates in the Scottish Conservatives, who are not happy being paper candidates and living in the happy nobility of defeat. Conservatives are back in Westminster, and in coalition in local government right across Scotland. They are no longer happy being honourable also-rans, and for the first time in decades have an appetite to win again in Scotland.

It is time for the Tartan Tories to come home, make a positive vote for an ideology they believe in.  Come on, its time to stop the SNP’s divisive agenda.