About Tories win in heartland. Well, well

Well, the UK General Election didn’t turn out as planned on a number of fronts. There was plenty to keep the headline writers busy – shock losses for Tories; shock gains for Labour; shock losses for Scottish Nationalists.

Not to mention the short Prime Ministerial reign of the disastrous Theresa May undoubtedly coming to a premature end. It will need a miracle for her to survive in the post. She has never looked comfortable in the job. She’ll be remembered for her permanent terrified expression, and her ‘running through the wheat field’ revelation.

In a news room, there is nothing better than the buzz of an exciting, shock-filled election. Thursday night was exciting all right and on Friday morning, the Scottish Press, television, radio, and every conceivable social media outlet was yelling, “Scottish electorate…how could you?” Vote for the Conservative Party, that is.

But some so-called shocks aren’t what they seem. To those of us who can cast our minds back to a pre-millennium political landscape, there was nothing shocking about Scots voting Tory.

In fact, my headline last week might well have been, ‘Tories regain Tory heartland – no shock here’.

When I started work in Ayrshire in 1974, the local MP was a Conservative called John Corrie. He was in his late 30s, from farming stock, tall, and good looking. The party – especially the older ladies – loved him. He didn’t do much as an MP, but he was a thoroughly affable and decent chap.

I moved to Aberdeen shortly after the 1979 election that propelled Margaret Thatcher to power and wiped out all but two of the SNP’s Westminster contingent of the 70s. It was in Aberdeenshire that I was exposed to what now seems like old-fashioned, traditional Scottish Conservatism.

People often think of Scotland in those days as a Labour Party stronghold and nothing else. Not true. As recently as the early 80s there were huge swathes of Tory blue on the electoral map. Go to Perthshire or Royal Deeside – towns such as Pitlochry and Ballater – and the residents there bleed Conservative blue. They have never had anything in common with the Glasgow working man.

The Tory MPS I used to deal with back then were a mixture of polite, landed gentry toffs such as Alick Buchanan-Smith; and businessmen like the very approachable Russell Fairgrieve. There were flamboyant characters such as the ‘Buchan Bulldog’ Albert McQuarrie and the madcap lawyer Nicholas Fairbairn; and the ambitious types like the Aberdeen South MP Iain Sproat.

The harshness of Thatcherism was in its infancy and not all these guys were comfortable with it. I remember chatting with Alick Buchanan-Smith, a charming man, at an event in Stonehaven one evening. I brought up the subject of Thatcher and I remember he said nothing, just shook his head and furrowed his brow. Her brand of Conservatism was clearly not his.

Except for one seat in Aberdeen City, the whole of Aberdeenshire, Perthshire, and Angus had elected Tory MPs in 1979. As well as the ones I’ve mentioned, there was Bill Walker in Perthshire, Peter Fraser in Angus, and Alex Pollock in Moray and Nairn. Further north, Ross and Cromarty had Hamish Gray; and schoolteacher John MacKay represented Argyll.

Then there was the old Banffshire seat. It was held by a chap called David Myles, another old Tory farmer. Myles was perfectly polite, but let’s say he wasn’t the most dynamic. In fact, the poor guy was so dull and uninteresting that he earned the nickname ‘Mogadon Myles’.

Even Fife – an area we don’t readily associate with Conservatism nowadays – had Tory MP Barry Henderson, and Glasgow boasted its own West End Tory MP Tam Galbraith.

Back then, we journalists had free access to these people. They weren’t protected by spin doctors and teams of press officers. I still have a list of every MP in Scotland complete with home and office phone numbers from my 1980 contacts book.

Many of the Tories of that era could be insufferably snobbish but they didn’t mince their words, and their quotes made wonderful newspaper fodder. My favourite came not from a Scot, but an MP from north-west England called Michael Jopling. When asked about the up-and-coming whippersnapper Michael Heseltine, Jopling commented, “The trouble with Michael is that he had to buy all his furniture.”

Mind you, Paisley Labour MP Allen Adams perhaps eclipsed Jopling when he said that Margaret Thatcher had behaved towards Scotland ‘with all the sensitivity of a sex-starved boa constrictor’.

Scotland’s Tory MPs of the 80s were swept away by Thatcherism, which was largely rejected north of the border. They didn’t all agree with her policies but they paid the penalty.

The SNP benefitted from their demise – bigly as they say over here. But political success and failure is cyclical, and it should have come as no surprise to see the Conservatives regain a foothold in their traditional rural heartlands last week.

How long it lasts remains to be seen of course. When will the next election be called? October?