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On Friday we launched our first article from the leadership campaign. Today we give you the third and final article from the leadership contest, Murdo Fraser, Regional MSP for Mid Scotland and Fife

The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party keeps losing.  We lost all our MPs in 1997.  We lost vote share in 1999.  We lost seats and vote share in 2007, and then again in 2011.  It wasn’t for the lack of trying.  Our people worked hard, and we had good, strong leaders in David McLetchie and Annabel Goldie.

We thought that Scotland, like all other developed countries, needed a strong, centre-right force, and we thought that things would get better and we would fill the void.  We were right about the first part.  But we were wrong about the second part.  Because, despite all our efforts, things didn’t get better.  We didn’t fill the void.  The void just became bigger.

So we need a reality-check.  Our party – the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party – will never succeed.  It will never be able to promote the values we stand for – the values which Scotland needs.

Why? Because we haven’t practised what we preach. We are a party which believes in devolving power to people.  But we haven’t devolved power to ourselves.

As a Party we needed a distinctive Scottish identity in order to attract the votes of people who used to vote Conservative and have left us, and of people who have never voted Conservative.  They’re not nationalists – they just want the best deal for Scotland, and think that the Conservatives are too English to deliver it.

Many Conservatives will be surprised at my proposals.  Some will agree, and some will disagree.  My message to one and all is clear.  Like you, I am fed up of losing.  Fed up of working and fighting so hard for such little return.

I want us to start winning again.  But we can’t start winning unless we understand why we keep losing.  And the brutal, honest truth is that we keep losing because our party is not fit for purpose in its current form.

That’s why I think it is time to start again.  So if I am elected leader, I will turn the party into a new party for Scotland.  A new party, distinctly Scottish, standing up for Scottish interests.  A new party which supports the excellent work David Cameron’s Westminster government is doing and whose MPs support a Conservative Prime Minister, but which is not afraid to disagree with it if it’s in Scotland’s interests.  On fisheries, or the future of our historic army regiments, for example.

A new party, with a new name, and a new, positive approach to the Scottish Parliament and the decentralisation of power.  It is our only future.

We are at the stage where change – real, meaningful change – is not an option, but is a necessity.  And I don’t mean superficial change.  A fresh, new Captain of the sinking ship is not going to be enough.  We need a new ship.

Or, to be more precise, we need to build a new ship modelled on one which sailed extremely successfully in Scottish waters before 1965.  Before 1965, our party was distinct from the UK Conservative party, and had its own name.  And it was successful – so successful that in 1955 it gained the only absolute majority of votes in Scotland in the period of modern democracy.

After 1965, we centralised.  We gave power away – transferred it from Scotland to London.  Our fortunes declined, to the point where, only 46 years later after gaining a majority or votes, we sit at just over 12% of the popular vote.

Enough is enough.  I want to be the captain of a new ship.  Our new party will be the vehicle by which we can start winning again.  It will be the foot-in-the-door that we need in order to make people give us a fair hearing again.

It will help us build a new centre-right movement in Scotland – a country which has a huge number of centre-right people, but a small number of centre-right voters.  It will rejuvenate our own party from the grass-roots up.  It will reinvigorate our members and our volunteers.  It will encourage those voters who have left us for the Lib Dems and the SNP to come back.  And it will make many voters who have never considered voting Conservative before think: “Maybe next time.”

The party could reject my ideas.  It may choose to elect someone else.  It may choose the old approach of disengagement from the wishes of the people of Scotland and negativity towards our country.  I’ve seen that movie many times before, and it doesn’t have a happy ending.  Einstein said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

It’s time to learn the lesson.  It’s time to change.  It’s time for a new party for Scotland.