Nat Myth No.3: "A government we didn't vote for"

Boris: not your typical Tory

According to popular opinion, the Tory Party is as welcome in Scotland as a Brussel sprout on a seven-year-old’s dinner plate. 

But, like most examples of popular opinion (think spiders coming up the plug, nails growing after death, Elvis being still alive) it’s about as factual as Mel Gibson’s Braveheart.

There are plenty of Conservatives in Scotland. They just don’t openly admit to it (I mean, would you? It doesn't exactly scream 'Mr Cool'). 

Boo-hoo, nobody likes me

Over 400,000 people in Scotland voted for David Cameron’s Conservatives at the last General Election. That’s roughly one in seven of the Scottish electorate.

Consider this number next time you’re squashed against a train window during rush hour. Those noses burrowed in Metros; students absorbed in their music; that angry guy in the suit who groans every time the train slows down; the napping woman whose head keeps jerking back up in panic to check she’s not missed her station; the guy with the bike that takes up half the standing area and the assorted bodies bent around it in some kind of commuter-special Twister.

One in seven of those people voted Conservative. Without sounding like the tagline to a sci-fi movie: they’re all around us.

Sure, we’ve all heard that now famous statement: “More pandas in Scotland than Tory MPs.” This might be true but surprisingly, it is not a true reflection of the Scottish Conservative support.

The very reason for this is the voting system we currently use, Single Transferable Vote. This system is designed to achieve a proportional representation of a constituency. The trouble is that a party can put up as many candidates as it likes and can hence swipe the second place in the voting rounds from under the poor Tory contender’s very moustache.

The SNP got 491,386 votes at the 2010 election, while 412,885 Scots voted for Cameron’s Conservatives. If we add to that the 465,471 folk who ticked the Liberal Democrats, then – ooh, surprise! We’ve got almost twice as many Scots who chose the coalition at Westminster than who voted for the SNP! 

Don’t forget that the SNP got a whole six seats at this election; the Conservatives only got one. This is why the Nationalists can pedal the myth of “nae Tories up here” without anybody questioning it.

If Alex really wants to play this schoolboy game, then we might as well spit it back at him: when it comes to Holyrood, hundreds of thousands of Scots are stuck with a government they didn’t vote for either. But that’s just democracy. There’s always going to be someone who has their day ruined.

The difference between the SNP’s 491,386 and the Scottish Tories’ 412,885 is pretty close in terms of election numbers. It is therefore reasonable to assume that an independent Scotland could end up with a Conservative Government at some point in the near future. Now wouldn’t that be a right bummer if you had voted Yes to get rid of the Tories? 

Bear in mind that in the event of separation, the jobs of the Scots MPs at Westminster – regardless of whether or not they represent a Scottish constituency or an English one – would be put into question. This means that Scotland could end up with the guys the very independence movement pertain to detest – think Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith. (Unfortunately, the remaining UK would get to keep Boris).

Instead of the First Minister trumpeting about ‘invisible’ Tories, perhaps his government should consider talking about alternative ways the electoral system could be fairer in Scotland – one that could be more democratically representative of the voters.

But they’d never do that, would they? This would mean the Conservative voters in Scotland actually being acknowledged. And that would destroy the Nats’ main argument.