THE UK Conservatives last night distanced themselves from the civil war threatening to destroy the Scottish Tories following David McLetchie's resignation.
Francis Maude, the UK chairman, said Scottish infighting was "clearly not helpful" to the party's ambition of seizing power from Labour.
He said he feared the circumstances of the Pentlands MSP's departure last week were obscuring the Conservative message. A spokesman for Tory leadership contender David Davis also indicated a coolness towards Scotland by saying the MP's trip north of the Border this week was "by no means certain".
This is partly because Davis's campaign manager in Scotland, Brian Monteith MSP, was forced to resign the Tory whip on Friday after plotting against McLetchie.
Maude's comments cap the worst week for the Scottish Tories since they lost all their seats at the 1997 general election. Their woes began on Monday when McLetchie resigned as leader following a Sunday Herald investigation into his travel expenses.
The Edinburgh MSP was forced to quit after he failed to explain a number of taxi journeys that appeared to be for party, personal and legal purposes. He is expected to be replaced by current interim leader Annabel Goldie, whose first days as acting chief were spent dealing with Monteith's resignation.
Maude said he was "sorry" McLetchie had resigned but said the party's troubles were hurting the Conservative cause.
"Everyone in the Scottish Conservatives should recognise that the only purpose of the party is to represent our constituents. Any energy which is not devoted entirely to that one purpose is energy that is harmful, " he said.
He added: "We are one party, and we stand together, or we fall together."
Maude said the fallout from the McLetchie resignation was not playing well with voters.
"It is clearly not helpful. I would urge everybody to get behind the new leader of the parliamentary group and pull together. No-one will have been happy with the turn of events of the last week, " he said.
But he did offer "full support" to Scottish Tory chairman Peter Duncan, who has been criticised for letting the McLetchie saga drag on. In a leaked e-mail, former deputy chairman Mars Goodman said: "We need a winner as chairman, someone who commands respect and affection and who knows about marketing our vote in the real world. Someone who would not tolerate improper behaviour from any of our senior people."
Maude's comments reflect frustrations at Westminster that the positive coverage of the leadership contest is being wasted by a Scottish Tory party at war with itself. McLetchie's resignation was followed by infighting where party MSPs demanded an investigation into allegations that a Tory mole had undermined him.
Other Tory insiders demanded an inquiry into the way "Taxigate" was handled by McLetchie's aides.
News of the bloodletting has reached the two contenders for the UK leadership of the party.
A spokesman for Davis said a planned trip to Scotland this week was in doubt. "His schedule on that day is being reviewed, " he said.
Davis's rethink follows the move last month by Cameron, who cancelled a provisional engagement in Scotland due to "diary commitments".
A spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives refused to be drawn on Davis and Maude's comments.
SNP deputy leader Nicola Sturgeon said Goldie's party was dying. "The biggest danger for the anti-Scottish Tories is that these events are only part of the reason why they have been abandoned by the Scottish electorate. The worst is yet to come for Annabel Goldie's dwindling band, " she said.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article