Even the Tories don't like the Tories

It's a shame really. A once proud party. It is only 50 years since they held the majority of Scottish parliamentary seats. Now it's nothing but ignominy. The Scotsman reports:

SENIOR Tories are considering secret plans for a "velvet divorce" between the party north and south of the Border after the Scottish polls in the event of electoral disaster.
Conservatives in London believe that hiving off the Scottish party would allow them to exploit Gordon Brown's Scottishness in the run up to the next UK election.
Officials working for Francis Maude, the Tory party chairman south of the Border, are already looking at the idea of making the Conservatives a party operating only in England and Wales, according to reports in today's edition of the Spectator.

OK, the Scottish Tories are a bit backward. They are like those family relations of which you are slightly ashamed. But that's no reason to cast them into the outer darkness; we all have to rub along together in this world.

The Guardian publishes the Conservative denials of the story (here) but nobody is likely to believe them.