Just another manic Mundell...

There is seemingly nothing that a political party's fan enjoys more than his or her "team" riding high in the polls than an opposition party falling apart at the seams.

The Tory party have had a rather spectacular fallout this week with David Mundell criticising the lack of thinkers in the Tory party and even having his own "scorecard" for each MSP. I am sure most people are more than aware of this already so I won't rehash an old story.

This may well lead to some Conservative voters looking elsewhere with Lib Dems and SNP being the possible winners which, as someone who wants the SNP to win in May, is a good thing but even still, I can't help but think that the woeful state of the Scottish Conservatives is a shame for the country.

The political spectrum needs to be strong on each side without moving to the extremes for a country to be successful. Scotland is rather odd in that they have 3 fairly left-wing parties and only 1 supposedly right-wing party. A newcomer to the scene would understandably think that SNP, Lib Dems and Labour would pull votes from each other and the Tories would clean up. I personally quite like the idea of a strong, steadfast Tory party with Goldie and Co marching into the argument mid-debate, gathering up the toys that have been thrown around the chamber out of the left-wing prams and giving a sober analysis of costs and rammifications of the numerous policies and approaches that are not good value for money.

If the Tories could give the impression that they would have the firmest grip on the Holyrood purse strings then they could go a long way. Holyrood building, trams, trident, Scottish Enterprise, councillor compensation, a flabby Executive and numerous multi-million projects that have fizzled out are all areas where the Tories could really score some points.

It is a shame for us all that they just can't simply sit down as a group, get their act together and come out fighting. Or maybe they are really up the creek if I, an SNP fan, am feeling sorry for them!


Incidentally, congratulations to Alan Simpson whose blog I am sure the Scotland on Sunday used as inspiration for this little piece.