Election on our doorstep
Follow Tory Hoose on Twitter. Read more from this authorArchie McIntyre is the current Chairman of Glasgow South-West. He has been in the party for many years and brings with him a wealth of knowledge and campaign experience.
We Scottish Tories aren’t used to leadership campaigns on our own doorstep. The inappropriate way some senior figures have been behaving towards their colleagues, both in Parliament and out of it, demonstrates this inexperience.
It all started when candidates started smearing others with comments they didn’t actually make. Then it was annoying our members who do not wish to get actively involved within the party by pestering them to support particular candidates, and now resorting to throwing election results at one another.
Murdo lost a small share of the vote in May’s election – but so did the vast majority of candidates. That is only because Murdo wasn’t able to fully express and act upon what he saw as our vision for the future. How could he implement plans to give us more autonomy over our own associations, and our party in Scotland, whilst Annabel was leader? This would undermine her authority and break cabinet solidarity. This is a leadership contest, and this is the right time and place to express these points of view. Scurrying off to the press or churning out press releases is not. Comparing Murdo’s election result to the results we could obtain if he wins is not comparing like with like.
It is the independent polling of what Scots really think about our current party, and how that impression changes with a new party, that really matters.
If, like me, you are sceptical about polls, then surely the fact Murdo is the only leadership candidate to attract new sources of funding is a ringing endorsement alone?
Business leaders do not make bad investments – they are successful in their respective fields because they invest in ‘sure things’. We have been leaking financial backing for too many years now. We have gone from having a massive office in the heart of Edinburgh to being based in a former constituency association’s ‘rooms’. Or to be more specific: room and kitchen.
The reason why is entrepreneurs are tired of throwing good money after bad – tired of injecting donation after donation to bankroll our election campaigns which lead to nothing. The election campaigns themselves were sound and I should know having been involved actively within them for decades, but they were thwarted by a damaged party brand and a perception that we Scottish Conservatives act for English issues before Unionist issues and Scottish issues.
None of the young cavaliers around Ruth’s camp have the right to say I am any less proud of being a Tory then they are because I back Murdo. I have been delivering leaflets and campaigning for this Party the length of breadth of Scotland since they were in nappies. And it is precisely because I have been delivering leaflets and knocking-up for decades with fruitless results that I feel it is now time to change our approach.
It is no good saying we need to shout that bit louder, or push that extra bit harder. In some campaigns, such as Richard Cook’s campaign for Renfrewshire East in 2010, we couldn’t possibly have got any more activists in, spoken to any more people, or printed and delivered any more leaflets than we did. Yet we not only failed to make headway – we took a massive step backwards. And that was no reflection of Richard Cook’s performance in any way because he fought the election very well.
So I don’t buy that simplistic line the other contenders are trotting out – the line that all we have to do is carry on business as normal but on a bigger, louder scale.
Nor do I buy the line that a change in personality at the top will be a magic bullet. Sir John Major was infamous for not having a big personality, but he was personable because he was just a regular person. No big personality or huge charisma, yet he gave us the best result we had for decades in 1992.
Then you have Annabel, who does have a lot of personality and charisma, yet under her leadership we lost a quarter of our seats (20 notionally, down to 15).
This is an election campaign amongst friends and colleagues, and we need to get that into perspective. This campaign is not about a personality cult, or indeed, personality cull. So let it come from an older head to younger ones – let’s all cool it a bit and may the best, and yes, most honourable, contender win.
Fact check here – is SCUP HQ one room and a kitchen as you state, or substantially more?
Why would someone make a claim like that?
We have a hallway, a reception area, a print room, a board room, a storage room and a large open plan office that can be divided into 2 rooms if necessary.
Plus a kitchen, male & female toilets, & a couple storage cupboards.
Lift your game Archie – leave the running down of the party to the tired old tabloid hacks & our opponents
‘Then it was annoying our members who do not wish to get actively involved within the party by pestering them to support particular candidates’
I believe that’s referred to as ‘canvassing’, which kind of goes with the ground in an election campaign.
The point Archie is trying to make, and it is a reasonable one, is that we are all members of the same Party. Our younger members are committed and enthusiastic. That is good and harnessing that enthusiasm will be better in the future.
But, the rival camps tearing lumps out of each other during the Leadership election does not help the Party – it helps our opponents. Let us conduct matters in a seemly fashion without resorting to cheap shots through the medium of the Scottish Press whom, I would point out, are not on our side.
Iain,
I appreciate that you’re duty bound to leap to the defense of Northumberland Streed (the venue) but we are miles behind the other parties. I was in SNP HQ prior to the last election and, even before they really got into gear, it blew anything we have out of the water for set up, professionalism and focus. We are miles behind and, at best, treading water. There’s no point denying that – we need to address it.
And I would absolutely agree with Archie and Gordon on keeping the message positive. I have a huge amount respect for Ruth but I was really disappointed with John Lamont’s press release and graph detailing Murdo’s election results. I know you support it, and think it’s fair game, but this leadership election should be an opportunity – a much needed and much delayed opportunity – for us to look at the way the Party is constituted and run. That opportunity will be missed if some campaigns are focused merely on knocking down their opposition – opposition they will have to work with, and maybe work for, after the elections. Far better for Ruth, who I’m sure has good ideas, to focus on those because, at the moment, I know more about Jackson’s ideas than Ruths.
Maybe it’s time for the candidates to come together, across some groundrules, and try and ensure that this leadership campaign goes forward demonstrating the best of Conservative politics and not the worst.
JHJ
@jhalcrojohnston
Jamie,
I wouldn’t mind John Lamont talking about his colleagues results quite so much if he got his figures correct. He says Murdo’s vote went down by 5.29%, but according to the BBC and ScotlandVotes, it was 2.59%. A simple transposition error, but not one clarified by John, nor editorial comment here.
Also, Scotand wide we went down 2.7%, not 1.odds. Again, source is the BBC. These errors turn the story on its head. The truth is Murdo outperformed the average result, but the incorrect results show the opposite.
This is easily the best article on the subject of the leadership election that I’ve read. I wish there were more Archies in the party.