Scotland and the 'Cameron' effect.

Why does Scotland appear immune to the ‘Cameron’ effect? Of all the likely outcomes next May, a Conservative administration in Holyrood isn’t attracting any serious money. So far the polling evidence suggests the Scottish party will end up, at best, in a broadly similar position at Holyrood as they are at the moment and this raises difficult questions for Annabel Goldie and her team as well as the wider UK party. The fact that Cameron’s front bench look ready to exploit continuing unease over the unresolved ‘West Lothian’ question should Gordon Brown assume the premiership makes those questions all the more pressing.

There is, of course, a rather common and conceited explanation for Cameron’s negligible impact north of the border - us canny Scots are simply more politically sophisticated than our southern neighbours and just haven’t bought what we perceive as a shallow re-branding. I know many otherwise intelligent people who would readily subscribe to that view, completely ignorant of its rather elitist and condescending undertones. In truth most of the Scottish electorate remain too steeped in their visceral hatred for Mrs Thatcher to reconsider the Tories and, to my mind, this actually suggests a lack of political sophistication rather than an excess. There were areas of the industrial north in England that also felt the full force of Thatcherism but they appear to have better understood the political imperatives of the time and tend to take a more balanced view of their political history.

To our great shame social class remains a significant factor in the Scottish political psyche. The regular dismissal of Cameron as an ‘Etonian toff’ (usually by people who couldn’t tell you where Fettes is never mind name its rather high profile former pupil) is testament to that. And whatever her political strengths or weaknesses Annabel Goldie’s matronly demeanour doesn’t help here.

In short, I don’t think the ‘Cameron’ effect will have any significant impact next May.

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[Scottish Political News]

The poll in the right hand column currently says that 78% of people think that the Scottish Tories have failed to grasp the "Cameron effect".