Mrs Thatcher's Scottish policy
Colin Bell
Edinburgh 4.41's Thatcher has been leader of her party '.°1' not quite three years, yet the visit she has lust made to Scotland was her ninth. That tehvel of devotion not only handily outstrips at of the Prime Minister, and his pre"`ccessor, and her own, but is beginning to east doubts on the filial concern of Sir Alec °41.,SuPermac. The strongest impression, as " ts doubtless meant to be, is that the pre'sent Tory leader cares passionately for Scotfor its problems and for its voters. „Rut, of course, the more frequently Mrs thatcher drops out of the skies on to an f°11rig, dons her protective overalls at a fish fr,aetorY, and sounds her clarion to gather:Ss of Scottish businessmen, the more rtizzling becomes her Scottish policy. The inheritor of a reasonably firm commitment some kind of Scottish devolution, she has 4losen to dilute that commitment step by ssteP, and to substitute her constant pre:eke for any consistent programme. It is an interesting strategy, and one which is not 11,ecessarily wrong, for all that it irritates the cottish press and distresses a minority of aeottish Tories.
It has been assumed that her steady thandonment of the Heath and .,chanan-Smith policies rests on cynicism. the argument has been that, since the Engl!Sh Tories are against devolution, the Scottish Tories are split on devolution, and that there are few seats to be won by Tories here any case, while every other party offers Lite elector merely a differing degree of tievolution, the easiest option for the official opposition is to be against it.
Certainly, the impression given first by the emotional Willie Whitelaw, and sub sequently by Francis Pym — whose corn and of the subject evoked drama where it ,tlid not invite derision — was that the Tories had decided Scotland was a hot, and indigestible, potato, best left to simmer on its etIWIL The resignation of Alick Buchanan as Shadow Secretary of State, fol'oNved by the refusal of both the Scottish and the British Tory conferences to hear his views, reinforced this impression: for Mr tuchanan-Smith has shown a singular reluctance to ignore the Scottish issue and to pursue his own career regardless of the swings of policy. 'none sense, all this may be true. But that does not necessarily mean that present Tory Policy is merely the compound of ignorance and opportunism. It would be quite reasonable to argue that the genuine Tory view and the most profitable Tory tactic may coincide: treat Scotland as a integral part of the British state, whose problems are cornIon British problems, and one simul taneously affirms the Union, and reaps the benefit of any anti-devolutionary backlash. Certainly, it would be a mistake to join in the chorus which declares that Scotland is different unless one then proposes to do something about it. If the Tories do not want to do anything about it, or cannot at any rate agree on what should be done, it follows that there is much to be said for behaving as if there were no Scottish issue.
There certainly is no strong evidence that the steady retreat from devolution, attended as it has been by a series of brief holding actions at various bizarre constitutional outcrops, has damaged the Tory vote. There is no evidence, either, that it has helped — but that is because all the signs for the past three years have been that the Tory vote in Scotland has held relatively steady. Steady, of course, at a level much depressed from that of 1S50-1970 but plainly not sinking any lower than it did in 1974.
Devolution, as we all know, brings the glaze of catatonia to every southern eye; but it has to be admitted that there are Scots whose fascination for the topic has begun to pall as well. Some say that this boredom reflects a settled and implacable determination that it shall be won, whatever Westminster may think or do; others occasionally suspect that it means devolution may be destined to join the hula-hoop, the cult of the equity and the Eastern Question in the lumber room. We shall only find out at the election — and not, I think, at any referendum which follows the enactment of the present, or any other, Scotland Bill.
The referendum does present problems for the Tories. For even if Mrs Thatcher has guessed right, and the enthusiasm for the Scottish issue is waning in Scotland, there can be no doubt about the outcome of the referendum. Boredom there may be, but an upsurge of hostility there is not; and coming as it will on the heels of the World Cup, any public interrogation of the Scottish voters which asks, as it ultimately will, 'Are you in favour of Scotland having something, or not?' is bound to mean a solid Yes.
Should, and would, the Tories campaign for a No vote? They will probably find Scots have an outright opposition to all or any form of devolution, which would then leave them with the prospect of fighting for 'No to this lot but possibly Yes to some other lot which we will dream up shortly'. That is the kind of political mistake which the SNP made over the EEC referendum, and presumably the Tories know it.
Furthermore, the No campaign will almost certainly be fought by an overwhelmingly big business group, whereas the Yes campaign seems likely to unite nationalists, liberals, Labour, most trade unions, and of course a few determined Scottish Tories. To be seen in quite such stark terms as the allies of big business, as well as of the great landlords, would not be particularly helpful to those Scottish Tories, presently in the ascendant, who are trying to wrest their party away from the brewers and the lairds. It may therefore be that the referendum, far from clarifying Tory attitudes, will actually guarantee that the present uncertainty is prolonged, and that Scottish Tories will enjoy some kind of conscience clause for its duration.
Now all this is fascinating stuff for those in Edinburgh who care about such things, but it may not have all that much import for the Tory managers, and the Tory leader. She, and they, while more than willing to grant Scotland repeated visitations, may ultimately rest their case on the proposition that Scotland is a write-off for the Tories anyway. Teddy Taylor, the current Shadow Secretary of State, recently entertained his countrymen with a spectacular list of Scott ish seats which he expected to be won; it included several where local Tories had pinned their hopes, if they existed, to nuc lear intervention, while it excluded Mrs Ewing's Moray and Nairn, held from the Tories by just 367 votes last time.
The fact is, there is no more evidence of a great swing to the Tories here than there is that the SNP will repeat their massive gains of 1974; Labour is weak, if not 'quite so weak as it was a year ago, and the Liberals are weaker, but on all the evidence of 1977, the only certainty is that seats will be won and lost by the freaks and vagaries of the electoral system as much as by the ground swell of popular revolt. An electoral system designed for a two-party contest becomes a singularly crude instrument when it is contested by three main parties — each entitled to hope at present that it will enjoy something around one third of the vote.
The Tories start with sixteen seats. Some are highly marginal to the SNP (Kinross, Ross and Cromarty), some are highly marginal to Labour (Aberdeen South, Edinburgh Pentlands, Glasgow Cathcart) and few are really safe. Of course, there are other seats in which the Tories must have genuine hopes (Angus South, East Dumbarton, Berwick and East Lothian, although apparently not Moray and Nairn) but all the signs are that if the Tories win four or five, they could as easily lose another four or five to end the day with a total not dissimilar to the present one. That, in the context of 635 seats, makes Scotland worth a visit, but not perhaps a Mass.
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