Are they now the Ruth Davidson Party?
They were Ruth Davidson and Murdo Fraser.
Murdo stood on a ticket on changing the party in Scotland, losing the toxic brand, and the automatic agreement with everything London dictated, and becoming a new, right of centre, distinctly Scottish party. Many in the party agreed with him. Many outside the party agreed with him.
Ruth, on the other hand, was David's woman. She areed with every word he said and he used all the power he could muster to have her elected, including supplying her (allegedly), against the rules, with his own PR people. (Not that they are up to much.)
Ruth disagreed with changing the name or the brand... She arrogantly asserted that the toxicity attributable to Mrs Thatcher should be water under the bridge. Why, she (Ruth) was just a girl when Mrs Thatcher was prime minister.
It was insulting, of course, to those who had lost their jobs, their futures, their dignity and their health becasue of Thatcher's ideological reforms, and it missed the point that the Tories became even more toxic under John Major. Indeed it wasn't until 1997, some 6 years after Thatcher had been shown the door by the Tories, that they reached the depths. In that election they had zero MPs in Scotland. In that respect they have recovered a little since then, having one MP... well, more or less. (As my old boss would say: Half a man is better than no man at all!)
Ruth showed herself as an arrogant and immature 33 year old who needed to do some growing up. But with the help of David Cameron she was duly elected and led the party to its worst result in 100 years in the UK elections of last year.
Well, now she has grown up. And there's an irony in the fact that she isn't any longer talking about the Tories at this general election. The toxicity has still not gone away, so she's selling herself.
Ruth Davidson for opposition. Quite apart from the fact that conceding defeat some 3 weeks before the election is pretty disturbing, it seems that she has come to the conclusion that she was wrong and Murdo was right.
Murdo must have a warm satisfied glow.
Ruth is counting on being the second party. The official opposition in parliament after the May election.
By pinning her party's fortunes so firmly to her own identity, she must realise that any failure in this regard is likely to fall fair and square on her shoulders
If Kezia Dugdale remains the leader of the opposition for the next five years, will Ruth fall on her sword?
Ruth won't fall on her sword. She may, however, fall off her tank. I saw on twitter that some old lady told an SNP canvasser she was looking forward to voting for Ruth for her constituency. The canvasser did try to explain that Ruth wasn't actually standing in Cathcart but the older lady wasn't for listening...
ReplyDeleteThat's a great one!
DeleteIndeed it is, Tamara.
DeleteI wonder what the lady will do when she gets to the polling station to discover that the canvasser was right, and indeed there's no Ruth.
Is falling off your tank the modern equivalent of falling on your sword?
And if so shouldn't be be updated to falling off a drone?
Tris
ReplyDeleteI don't think the Tories will do that well and fully expect BLiS to form the main opposition but with less seats. I know I live in YES City but when people chat, even unionists, none of the leaders come out of it well on the unionist side so they are blindly ignoring how poor they are (as they do most things) and are voting for party. I mean look at Marra, there is someone who shouldn't ever be in parliament but saying that I can't stand the list or the double dipping. Will Ruth stand down if they finish third, I doubt it but she might if they were to finish fourth behind the Greens but I suppose they won't. I think Dugdull and Tankgirl will probably survive another year at least, not so sure about Rennie. Even if he survives in his seat if Rumbles or that annoying Alexander guy in Edinburgh get elected he might face a challenge, not much of a challenge though. When you think about it they paid a heavy price for their betrayal during the referendum and Salmond really did a job on them.
Bruce
Well the polls are all over the place, Bruce. In some the Greens are going to have more seats than the Liberals. And in some the Tories are beating Labour.
DeleteI'd have thought Dave's escapes in Central America and the Caribbean might have had some effect on the Tories ... too early to tell.
I see the Liberals have sacrificed their only woman member to let mike Rumbles at the top of the list. As she seemed to be the only one apart from Willie that ever did anything, you have to wonder.
Maybe the idea is that when he gets in, as he probably will, he'll challenge Willie?
"As my old boss would say: Half a man is better than no man at all!"
ReplyDeleteOr as we say in these pairts, "He's worse than a man doon".
Aye, Jim, that's a bit more descriptive than my old boss's version.
DeleteShe represents the pretendy "Scottish" Tory party but her master's in the real Tory party are braying about der untermensch as being only fit for paying taxes and electing their "betters" to power to avoid so doing.
ReplyDeleteI don't wish her any luck at all and would much rather she took herself and her nasty party south of the border where they belong.
Well, that's true of all the unionist parties, isn't it?
DeleteCertainly since the referendum they have all understood that people want policies that are distinctly Scottish, but none of them ever actually disagree with London.
I have to say that I always think of the Tories as a distinctly English party. There's nothing Scottish about them at all.
Kezia Dugdale isn't going to remain leader for the next five years, even if she hangs onto second place. My prediction is a Sarwar-Marra team taking over. By the end of summer if the Tories take second place.
ReplyDeleteRuth isn't going to be pried out of leadership immediately as long as her party gains a few more seats than it had before. Failure to overtake Labour will weaken her position, but not critically. As always, the SCUP's biggest problem is its big brother in London.
No. I can't see Kez staying on for 5 years. I don't think that she really likes the job and I don't think she is good at it... and to be honest, I think she knows that.
DeleteThe last half decent man they had was Jack McConnell. And every one since has been worse than the one before.
Wendy was less competent than Jack (although she was cleverer); Iain less competent than Wendy (and less appealing); Johann less competent (although much nicer) than Iain; then the incredibly weird choice of Jim, who may have been competent in some ways, but was to the right of Boris Johnson and Genghis Khan, and as such the weirdest choice possible for a leader in Scotland.
Kezia is even worse than he was; no charisma, no spark, no real enthusiams (or if she has, she hides it well) and Sarwar is even worse than her.
If they go with him, they are finished.
What they need is someone with passion; someone who is clever enough to cross swords in parliament with Nicola; someone with a likeable personality who will win over the people; someone who is left of centre reflecting the needs of the core Labour vote; someone who wasn't particularly associated with the referendum (they need to remember that 45% is a big proportion, especially when a good deal of it came from their vote). They need someone who really believes in Scotland. Not just says it then runs to London to ask if they can open their curtains or have another biscuit with their tea!
Sarwar fits none of the above.
Charisma free zone; bad speaker; London chained; clever but not nearly sharp enough for FMQ against Nicola; too associated with the referendum; not nearly left wing enough (rich kid, rich daddy, private education, hereditary seat...or it was!)
It will be interesting, I think.
I've noticed that as well. I think Murdo wanted to rebrand them as the Progressive Party (opposite of conservative, the rogue!). Ruthie is desperate to get a good mark on her CV so she can then bugger off to get a nice English safe seat for 2020.
ReplyDeleteThe Unionist media was fond of attacking the SNP over the cult of personality that supposedly surrounded Alex Salmond and now Nicola Sturgeon. Have these clowns no sense of irony?
Irony upon irony PS. They couldn't have a Progressive Party, but they can have a Ruth Davidson Party.
DeleteThen, as you point out they made much of the cult of personality... and now this.
It would be a major victory for Yes if any of the Unionist parties threw in their lot and came out in favour of independence. We are still in a curious period in Scotland. We are hoping there has been a realigmet along Irish precedent. One where the overriding choice of the people is home rule first and foremost.
ReplyDeleteWe need this Holyrood, the council and the next Westminster's to all have the SNP on over 50% before they realise in the other groups that they have no future in politics unless they embrace independence. It is up to the people now. Can enough of them stay the course for us to win the prize, even if its 5 years away?
Saor Alba.
That makes sense.
DeleteIm amazed that, although it is clearly not fit for purpose, the Labour party ignores the desire of its followers for social democratic values and of at least some of its followers for independence, or real home rule.
They seem blind to the needs of their followers, who are no longer their followers because of this.
Why? Presumably becasue London says so. Don't frighten the horses.Jeremy won;t be around that long. We'll take the party back, so don't start with any of that lefty, independent nonsense. ????
Every photoshoot of Ruthie sees her engaging with an inanimate object,a tank,a rally car,a football etc. etc. Don't the Tories have any real people to engage with?---On second thoughts,forget I just said that.
ReplyDeleteYou asked the question; you answered it.
ReplyDeleteJob done.
:)
For some reason the image of Ruth 'falling on her sword' reminded me of the old joke about the old lady in the sex-shop pointing at the shop-keeper's thermos flask and saying "I'll have that one"
ReplyDeleteAlright, I'll get me coat - I never liked this blog anyway!
You were always a little on the coarse side for this blog, let me tell you. Munguin's spoken to me on several occasions about it.
Delete:) :)
Jutie: If you've popped in... how did it go today?
ReplyDelete