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Cameron slams Scots Tories for not fighting Nationalists | Quote: | DAVID CAMERON today accused toothless Scottish Tory leaders of allowing opportunist Nationalists into party heartlands through the back door.
On the eve of hosting a UK Shadow Cabinet meeting in Edinburgh, the Tory leader admitted his party had let Scotland down.
Mr Cameron condemned the Nationalists as shamelessly opportunistic and said Alex Salmond's party made Labour's Liberal Democrat coalition partners look upstanding.
But he admitted, in what former Tory MSP Brian Monteith described as an "astonishing intervention," that the Scottish Tories had allowed the SNP to make progress in what should be Conservative heartlands.
Evening News columnist and now Independent MSP Mr Monteith said: "David Cameron's analysis is correct. It's spot on.
"It's an astonishing intervention by the UK leader of the party, but two things follow from that. Does Scottish Tory Leader Annabel Goldie accept this, and what are they going to do to put it right? We now need to know what David Cameron is proposing to sort this out. What we're talking about here is a radical transformation."
Tory leader Mr Cameron, who has made clear since taking the job last year that he regards winning back Scotland as a priority, will chair a meeting of the full Shadow Cabinet at Edinburgh's Dynamic Earth tomorrow. And members of his top team will be making visits around Edinburgh, Stirling and Ayrshire to demonstrate their commitment to winning more seats in the Holyrood elections.
Mr Cameron in a newspaper interview this morning made a blistering attack on the Scottish National Party and its lack of principles, saying: "They are the biggest bunch of political opportunists and make the Liberal Democrats appear upstanding."
Of his own party's performance he said: "When you ask the question, have we let down people in Scotland, I don't want to appear that I am indulging in a sort of exercise of endless self-immolation but I mean yes, the Scottish Nationalists are in areas which should be heartlands for the Scottish Conservatives and this is what is so frustrating.
"I see the Scottish Nationalists in the Westminster Parliament defending the Scottish regiments, talking about rural post offices as if the Scottish Nationalists could do anything to help save the Scottish regiments or care about the countryside.
"It is frustrating because the Scottish Nationalists ride this tiger of disestablishment, and breaking away, and adopt all sorts of positions. In areas where they go left, they go left: where they go right, they go right. I don't think they have any firm principles at all.
"We should be giving Scottish people a proper choice in politics. Every country in Europe of a decent size has a sensible, moderate, reasonable centre-right party as a prospective party of government and Scotland doesn't at the moment. I want to make sure that party is the Conservative Party.
"We have a long way to go, no doubt about it, but I think we should be giving Scottish people a proper choice in politics. At the moment you have a choice between Labour and Liberal Democrat, who are running things and not making a great fist of it, or the SNP who want to break up the Union and whose politics is one of destruction and disestablishment."
Former Scottish Tory leader David McLetchie, MSP for Edinburgh Pentlands, denied Mr Cameron's comments were an attack on him or his successor Annabel Goldie.
He said: "The seats that were lost to the SNP were lost before the establishment of the Scottish Parliament - and since then, we have won seats back from the SNP.
"I agree with him we need to do a great deal better in terms of recovering our position, but I don't think his statement is a criticism of the party leadership in the Scottish Parliament. That does not accord with the facts." |
http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=87072007
Looks like more intervention will be coming from the Westminster bunch.
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Claymore
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Sorry missed that, was just doing the washing up for the webcam 
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skip
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I think this article is quite interesting from the point of view of what it actually acheived and what it was meant to acheive.
I'm guessing he thought that he could do some easy nat-bashing and 'gee up' up his party into making a more stern defence of the union. And to be fair he has a point - the most unionist party finds it hard to get a word in edge-ways since the original Union has changed and the debate has moved on to the natural territory of Labour (devolution) and SNP (independence).
But what Cameron's quotes have led to is an article that suggests they are trailing in the debate and suggests they have themselves to blame for the predicament. Sure he slags off the SNP but the snp are flying in the polls so the criticism is a bit rich coming from them. The statements come across a bit down on the leadership, and i can't see how anyone of their party would feel motivated by the criticism. Surely so close to an election he had to say "annabel goldie will be fighting to save the union" and then spin out some 300th anniversary stuff.
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bratachdubh
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| skip wrote: | | annabel goldie |
The unacceptable face of Scottish Toryism?
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