Owen Jones Bernard Ingham says Northerners who loathe the Tories are ‘demented’. Perhaps I can put him straight...
Post by Owen Jones.
Whatever happened to Tory Glasgow? It now seems absurd to the point of unthinkable, but in the 1920s the constituency of Glasgow Central was represented by a Tory Prime Minister, Bonar Law. When Winston Churchill’s party was drowned by the Labour tide that swept Britain in the aftermath of the Second World War, stubborn old Glasgow Central opted for the Tories’ sister party, the Unionists. Even a third of the impoverished residents of Glasgow’s Gorbals were voting blue in the mid-1950s. Arch-Thatcherite Teddy Taylor – who once declared that Nelson Mandela “should be shot” – represented Glasgow Carthcart as late as 1979. In the mid-1950s, most Scots were voting for candidates with blue rosettes – an even higher proportion than the English. Scotland was once a Tory heartland, and within living memory too.
Any Tory with a trace of survival instinct should listen to Nick Boles’ warning that his tribe are seen as “the party of the rich” and face being driven to a southern English hinterland. It is hardly prophetic: it just describes a long-standing process. In their old Glasgow Central stronghold, the Tories only just avoided losing their deposit at the last election. They are all but a fringe party north of the border, winning just over 16 per cent in 2010 in what was once one nation under Toryism. No wonder so many of Cameron’s colleagues secretly hope Scotland will cut the Union cords next year. read more
