HONESTLY, what is the point of the Scottish Tories? It certainly isn’t to be an effective opposition party. There’s a comparison that describes someone challenging a position of power as being like a fly.
The Greek philosopher Socrates was likened to a gadfly due to his buzzing and biting around self-satisfied Athenians. But “fly” would be an ill-fitting word to describe Douglas Ross or his coterie of reactionary parliamentarians.
While Socrates needled and challenged the dominant socio-political ideas of Greece at the time (according to Plato, at any rate) our right-wing opposition appears far more interested in the conservative tradition of preserving them.
And unlike the Gnat of Athens, who disturbed power with his relentless probing, it would be difficult to attribute any meaningful achievement to the Scottish Tories throughout their 22-year attendance at the Scottish Parliament. A fly, at least, can move the herd with its persistence.
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Without any tangible progress or success, the Tories have been reduced to grasping for any policy that could turn their fortunes, while mumbling jealous insults at their opposition. How infuriating it must be to watch the Conservatives romp to victory in England, while their entitlement to power is frustrated in Scotland – and how transparent their fury at the success of the Scottish Green Party for being such an indicator that we are preparing to leave the Tories’ musty ideology in the past.
After all, the Greens appear to be where so much of their recent impotent anger has been directed.
As part of the Holyrood debate on the new programme for government, Tory MSP Rachael Hamilton quipped: “With the newly announced Minister for Zero Carbon Buildings, Active Travel and Tenants’ Rights and the Minister for Green Skills, Circular Economy and Biodiversity taking up their positions, I have been left to wonder when the government will unveil the next minister for compost, country bumpkins and the winter solstice.”
It betrays, to me, a party that has become so entrenched in the glory days of Conservatism that marginally more contemporary and necessary ideas – such as biodiversity and decarbonisation – are so alien to their understanding of a modern nation that the only response is to lash out like a child frustrated by a question they do not know the answer to.
It’s equally on display through their hostility to a transition away from the current structure of the oil and gas industry, even as the IPCC issued a code red for humanity.
The Scottish Tory Party’s overnight revelation on the importance of the plight of workers in these industries is as opportunistic as their growing interest in opposing reform of the Gender Recognition Act, though at least in this area the Conservatives have form, having been the party that introduced Section 28 (Section 2A in Scotland) and whose MSPs mostly opposed marriage equality.
The Scottish Tories may like to play the “country bumpkin” angle to poke fun at necessary ministerial briefs on climate change and tenants’ rights, but in reality it only highlights the Conservatives’ infamous boredom of experts.
Lorna Slater is an engineer of 20 years in the field of green energy, while fellow Scottish Greens
co-leader Patrick Harvie has decades of experience successfully working in Scottish politics – experience and expertise that is sorely lacking from the complainants.
THE Tories have been coasting on “only we can stop a second referendum” for so long now that it barely feels like their hearts are in it anymore.
When they do oppose the Scottish Government, it’s often so intellectually lazy and soundbite driven that it comes across as resistance purely for the sake of having something to do to pass the time with. Even mealy-mouthed accusations of anti-English sentiment in Scotland come ready with an apology.
I would wager with complete confidence that should every member of the Scottish Tory Party step out the Holyrood chamber tomorrow, there would be not a jot of difference in the policies and legislation of this Parliament four years from now than had they stayed.
Nobody could say that my politics fall anywhere near the political right, but if I had voted Conservative I’d be aghast at how the party has become such a one-note relic in Scotland.
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In many ways, they are the epitome of the argument that Westminster is an institution unfit for a modern democracy, relying as their southern counterparts do, on cheap jibes and confrontation over co-operation and good-faith discussion.
Which brings me once again back to that question: what is the point of the Scottish Tories? It’s something I’ve asked before but after listening this week to their tone-deaf defences of the oil and gas industry, and regurgitation of anti-indy rhetoric nearly a decade out of date, I’m not sure they know anymore either.
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