Calton thinks that Willie Rennie is indulging in a flight of fantasy in thinking that "liberalism, not nationalism, will dominate Scottish political landscape in the years ahead", given the way the constituency map of Scotland changed from orange to yellow in the 2011 election. If there is a rich seam of liberal values in Scottish history it did not translate into Libdem votes. The jury is still out on whether the Scots voted SNP because they wanted independence or because they wanted a centre-left party and were fed up of Labour. (Calton suspects the latter.) What is certain is that they didn't want a bunch of Libdems who seemed to be prepared to abandon their principles and go in with any party as long as they were in power.
Murdo Fraser has realised that the Scots Tories need to divorce themselves from the English party to stand any chance of gaining more seats at Holyrood. Calton wonders how long it will take our Willie to come to the same conclusion?
