What is to be done?

Well, I suppose my first post should really be about the recent General Election, after all it is the biggest political news at this time. Unfortunately I was not involved in any campaigns because I could not get away from the US of A. Does that mean I shouldn't comment or criticize on individual campaigns or the campaign as a whole in Scotland? Probably, but I am going to give my tuppence worth anyway!!

OK, I am going to start with the Coalition. I am worried that the Conservatives are leaning to far to the Centre. Unlike some other opinion I don't fear we will go too far left but lets face it anything is better than Gordon Brown. I wish the new Government all the very best, I will continue to watch from afar and hope the Liberals aren't allowed to come up with too many hair brained schemes. Families in one bed flats eh Mr Clegg?

Anyway down to business. The result in Scotland was bloody awful. No matter how you look at it the result was rubbish. All of our 'winnable' seats went back the way and we are now in a worse position than we were in 2001 or 2005 which is a truly mind boggling place to be. I mean we had the most unpopular Labour Government since 1979 and we go back the way?!? What the hell happened?

Does the blame lie with candidates? Does the blame lie centrally? Probably both to be honest. The shocking lack of diversity in top seat candidates really needs addressed. I remember sitting at a meeting of target seat candidates at the Ayr conference and every one of them was a middle aged white man. Not good. Interestingly one of them said, "I wonder how many of us will be MP's after the next election." Hmmmm big fat zero then my man. I mean, don't get me wrong, they are all good people (well mostly) but every one of them failed. Apart from one.

Now some of the people that read this blog will know that I worked for David Mundell. Some of the people reading this will not like David Mundell. He is our only MP so he must have some idea of what he is doing. A lot has been said since the election about what should happen to the Scottish Tories. Well I think they could do worse than making Mr Mundell Chairman again, or even a new Chief Exec role could be created. He is an excellent campaigner, an excellent organiser and, one of the more important points, he can spot problems and deal with them in a timely fashion. Mr Mundell expects hard work from people but will work hard himself. The chances of getting this through the Party would be pretty slim. Well, he got elected, no one else did and he even increased his majority. I think some of you should be asking yourself why!

The other thing I have heard mooted recently is the idea of a separate Tory Party in Scotland along the lines of the German CDU model. This is utter nonesense. Does anyone really think that cutting the Scottish Tories loose will help them? We have been semi autonomous for a while now and it has hardly borne fruit. No, what I think should happen is the opposite. We should come under direct control from CHQ in London. A controversial idea I agree but I can't help feeling they may have better working practices. Again this is something that would be very difficult to sell to the Party.

So, there you go. Thats my opinion on recent events. Please feel free to comment.