Thrive by Lesley Riddoch sampler

Scotland’s settled will
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sell-yer-granny-style Conservative governments at Westminster.
In contrast and by comparison, Scots can see their kind of
country very clearly. They vote for it at every election and are
infuriated when Scottish outcomes are ‘only’ equal to the UK
average. The outline of the new Scottish state flickers into life
with each collective flinch at a postponed CalMac ferry or burst
of anti-migrant rhetoric from Suella Braverman.
It’s important, though controversial, to note that this
precious settled will even includes Scottish Tories. Of course,
it’s entertaining to highlight tensions between Douglas Ross
and his frothing ‘die-in-a-ditch’ English counterparts. But the
Scottish Conservatives’ alignment with the rest of the Scottish
Parliament on issues like eu membership, Scottish Child
Payments, proportional voting and Personal Care, is proof
positive that the Scottish political spectrum is not the palette of
blue you’ll find down south. Back in 2001, the Herald reported:
Henry McLeish continued to play cat and mouse
with opposition msps yesterday as the snp and Tories
suspected a U-turn on his multi-million-pound plans
for free care for the elderly.
No, you didn’t misread that.
Twenty years ago, Scottish Tories were trying to make sure
Scotland leapt beyond miserly British norms by demanding
that Scottish Labour stick to its free personal care reforms.
Labour Ministers south of the border so opposed Scottish
Labour’s initiative that the dss, headed by Alistair Darling,
tried to scupper his colleagues’ proposal by withholding £23m.
Jings, with friends like these… Presumably the Scottish Tories
hoped free personal care would tear Labour apart. It didn’t,
but the initiative alerted voters to the bigger progress that could
be made without the dead hand of Westminster interference.
Even now, despite huffing and puffing, Scottish Tories are more
like Nordic welfare-state-supporting Conservatives than the
hard-right, state-dissolving maniacs at Westminster.