It’s unmistakable, isn’t it?
The rumble of approaching engines, the acrid whiff of brimstone, the
crushing pain as a tank tread runs over your foot.
“Make way, peasants,
for the Conservatives’ 2017 General Election Tour of obscure village halls,
garden sheds and Wendy houses! For your
own safety, please refrain from taking photographs, otherwise we’ll be forced
to kill you. Any journalists present should proceed to the nearest broom cupboard. Have those children been security cleared,
madam? Oh, they’re here for the
party? Bad luck, there isn’t one, we
just said that to hoodwink the separatists. In the national interest, you
understand.”
The Scottish Tories are back in business: loud, proud and rent-a-crowd. As Theresa May’s strictly-no-scrutiny roadshow
trundled into Crathes, Ruth Davidson was in her element. Lately elevated to Honorary Colonel of 32
Signal Regiment on account of her extreme shoutiness, she orchestrated the
distribution of placards with military precision. Her control of the audience’s enthusiasm
wasn’t quite so complete, with some of those present looking as if they’d
rather be undergoing root canal work performed by Edward Scissorhands. Still, I’m sure they’ll see sense after the
laird’s henchmen have been round to tend their gladioli with a spot of
weedkiller.
Having sussed out that David Mundell is as much use as a cake-slice
in a sandstorm, Theresa’s increasingly turning to Ruth for North British
prefect duties. Need to test the
nation’s gag reflex with a clunking propaganda interview? Ruth’s got a list of happy-clappy questions. Fancy
a door-knocking exercise without risk of public challenge? Ruth’s taken everyone hostage at the village
hall, so you’re good to go. Want to slander
Jean-Claude Juncker as a pished old fart?
Consider it done, ma’am, just you finish your chips while Ruth gets down
and dirty with the innuendo.
So the bandwagon’s rolling, Empire 2.0 is striking back and
Ruth is the Chosen One, even if half the Cabinet still thinks her surname is
Harrison. Once she’s finished
dismantling Holyrood, she can aim for any glittering prize she likes: a high-Tory-low-IQ Westminster seat in the Home
Counties, perhaps, or a ride into glory astride the first Trident missile to
depart for Pyongyang. But before we
pesky Nats sit down, shut up and prepare to be telt, there’s one jarring wee
problem. The Scottish public is
notoriously intolerant of those who get too big for their boots, and right now the
Tories look like a Monty Python foot trying to squeeze into Cinderella’s
slipper.
They’re so up themselves they’ve even forgotten to pretend
their policies aren’t disgusting. If you
seriously regard the “rape clause” as sensitive, you should take a look at
yourself in the mirror, unless you’re a vampire, in which case there’s no
point. If it’s the best option for
avoiding unfairness your shrivelled cerebellum can come up with, you should be lobbing
your whole tax credit policy into the bin.
And if you reckon, har-de-har, the Scottish Government should be
stumping up still more cash to fix things, you should be behind bars, because
you’re running a protection racket.
The BBC’s quilted embrace can’t entirely shield the party
from public disquiet, so on a few occasions recently Ruth’s felt the need to
wrench herself away from the limelight.
Fortunately, there’s been a willing stooge on hand with the mucking-out
pail. Adam Tomkins is a proper
professor, specialising in Public Law, presumably because a professorship in
Snippy Condescension wasn’t available. Some
say he has a brain the size of a planet, albeit one located in a micro-universe
contained entirely within the circumference of a gnat’s scrotum. Having publicly expressed a desire for an
independent Scottish republic in 2005, he continues to pursue that dream
through undercover work as a complete pain in the arse.
Last week Tomkins was as ubiquitous as sand in your walking
socks. At Holyrood, defending the
two-child cap, he was in full fiscal android mode. “Look at the mess Labour
left,” he bleated, as if “mess” didn’t actually mean “gigantic excuse for
wealth transfer to the obscenely rich”. Before you could find a hard surface to
head-butt, he was on screen again, pontificating at a food bank. “80% of
clients don’t need to make a return visit,” he proclaimed, like an arsonist feeling
chuffed because he’d only burnt your house down once.
Sadly for Adam, the signs of over-exposure were already
showing when he pitched up on Radio 4’s Any
Questions, where Jeane Freeman proceeded to take him apart like a chef
slicing an onion. It still seems to be available on iPlayer, schadenfreude
buffs. Prepare for a treat, if Downing
Street hasn’t had it over-written with a recording of a seal barking the
National Anthem.
Ruth had better hope that Adam’s deflector shields are
mended soon, for the seam of talent in the Scottish Tories runs horrendously
shallow. A couple of desultory scoops
with a teaspoon and you’re down to Murdo Fraser, a man as likely to be
associated with serious political thought as a Wet Wipe is to be declared a type
of fruit. Don’t get me wrong, I once
nearly bought into one of Murdo’s ideas, when as a leadership candidate he
wanted to rip up the party and start again, except that I stopped at the word
“and”. His subsequent decline, based on
a catastrophic misinterpretation of what constitutes humour, is startling.
“Why don’t people abroad find Scotland an attractive place
to live?” snarked Murdo at First Minister’s Questions, knowing fine well he has
the power to fix that by moving to Patagonia. “Will you have the guts to resign your list
seat to fight the Borders by-election?” he tweeted at the SNP’s Paul
Wheelhouse, despite being himself a list MSP, and indeed the most unelectable big
jessie since humanity emerged from the primordial swamp. If the resulting chain reaction of irony
swallows up the universe, you know who to blame.
Still, even Murdo’s a fount of wit and wisdom compared to
gaffe-prone candidate stalker Jackson Carlaw.
“Not all tickety boo for Kirsten Oswald as her supposed campaign HQ
closed for business,” smirked the puce puffball, supplying a photie as evidence. Sadly, the reason for the office closure
turned out to be that the candidate was out campaigning with the First
Minister, who responded with a cheerful hoot of derision that’ll still be
bouncing about the Twittersphere when Jackson’s great-grandchildren get their
bus passes.
So, with all the hubris wafting about, not to mention shamelessness
and incompetence, has Scotland truly passed “peak Tory”? You never quite know, because the most
annoying thing about absolute bastards is that they always turn out to be organised
when it counts. And some people will
vote Tory to preserve the Union even if it entails having their firstborn
devoured by wolves.
But let’s face it, these poltroons are the indy movement’s
dream team. If we’d been asked two years
ago to select our ultimate opponents, we’d have hacked through a bramble hedge
with plastic cutlery to get Ruth and her Tory triumphalists. If we can’t win the argument over this appalling
shower we don’t deserve to be in the game.
Time to puncture those Tory revivalist balloons and send Her
Honorary Colonelship a signal she won’t forget.
Game on.
