Conference season is here again, kicking off with the Tories in Edinburgh. Scotland’s capital city is lovely but I must admit to a little disappointment there will be no weekend in Inverness courtesy of any political party this year.
Back to business, can the Conservatives use this event as a springboard to claw back some more political capital in Scotland?
Upping the conference to three days from two seems a bit of an optimistic start, particularly when the pretty sparse programme is examined.
It’s definitely a day and a half worth of events spread thinly over three but in some ways that’s not the point. The point is that, by extending their conference, the Scottish Tories are showing a bit of optimism.
They are the only party that can benefit from the flag waving unionism that has emerged, in some cases, as a reaction to similar Saltire showcasing from the hard line in the Yes campaign.
Could they really be back in power at Holyrood within 10 years, though? Party chairman Richard Keen said so in a recent newspaper interview but the reality is there’s a lot still to be done if they want to have any sort of major influence beyond a noisy opposition.
A larger than usual number of UK cabinet ministers have arrived for the event but the question is, will they be back next year? Are they here for the referendum or do they have faith in the party cause north of the border, where they have badly struggled to recover from their wiping out 17 years ago?
These questions may not be answered this weekend but the atmosphere over the next couple of days will go a long way to suggesting whether or not the party truly has a hope of bouncing back, or if it is still simply stuck in the mud in Scotland.