Even amidst dire polling for the Tories nationally, nobody seems to think a 1997-style wipeout is on the table in Scotland.
“Because all the reforms you guys passed already have panned out really well over the past 20 years, haven’t they.”
Gordon Brown entered the Treasury with low inflation, falling unemployment, steady growth, and shrinking taxes and spending. Rachel Reeves would not be so lucky – nor will the Chancellor, if we win the election.
To avoid a 1997-style wipe-out, the aim is to imitate the strategy of John Major’s remarkable victory from five years earlier.
It really worries me when coming elections are discussed only in terms of the future of the party leadership.
It’s a contest between Sunderland and Newcastle. But even if Labour does badly in early results, how much will that tell us?
Jon Davis and John Rentoul’s new book contains valuable material, but cannot efface Iraq, or the former Prime Minister’s self-righteousness.
The Tories are working hard not just to argue but to demonstrate that Scottish interests are best served within British institutions and frameworks.
The 1997 experience of Downing Street keeping the manifesto process to itself was unhappy. The Party needs to draw on wider talent to reinvent itself in government.
A look back at 1997 shows how transient landslides can be. City devolution gives Tories the chance to bed themselves in properly in new parts of the political map.
They can wring their hands one day and ring the bells the next – or vice-versa. After all, they rejoiced when sterling joined the ERM. We know how that one ended.
A further graft from the remnants of Labour and the LibDems might be the best way of preserving the Union and providing an alternative government to the SNP.
Like the Conservatives after 1997, Corbyn’s Labour and some Remainers, America’s Democrats are failing to learn from their mistakes.