This thesis addresses the reasons why Scottish Conservative support contracted under Thatcher, challenges the assumption that Thatcher was ‘anti-Scottish’ and places her in the wider context of Scottish Conservative and Unionist history, whilst illuminating Scottish Conservative personalities. This thesis has taken an overview of Thatcher’s tenure as Prime Minister, and illuminates key areas of Scottish society in the 1980s that have hitherto been under-researched. No historian or social scientist has attempted the broad perspective before. The research has been split into six chapters, and each chapter follows a chronological pattern. Chapter One provides a historical overview of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party since 1886, which is interlinked with the development of the post-war consensus. The chapter concludes by analysing Scottish Conservative Party personalities and in-fighting, both of which are under-rated features of Thatcher’s premiership. Chapter Two examines Thatcher’s economic restructuring and the growing prominence of the European Economic Community (EEC). Chapter Three analyses Thatcher’s industrial relations reforms, and the 1984/85 miners’ strike. Chapter Four scrutinises the Conservatives’ overhaul of the welfare state. Chapter Five focuses on Thatcher’s reform of local government, including the introduction of the community charge. Chapter Six charts the development of the ‘Scottish question’.

This thesis seeks to develop a conception of the political traditions operating in the UK and then apply it to the development of Scottish Devolution. I argue that the concept of tradition has been under-valued and theorized in social science and that the notion of political traditions has heuristic value when applied to British politics. Discussion of a distinctive British Political Tradition has been kept to the margins in explanations of the British political system with only a few authors seeking to explore the ideational underpinnings of the institutions and process of British government and the Westminster Model. The recent work of Bevir and Rhodes has raised the profile of political traditions, however I contend that their conceptualization is flawed and thus, heuristically limited. I argue that we can identify a dominant political tradition, the British Political Tradition, which has decisively influenced the nature and conduct of British political life over time. This tradition expresses and facilitates the ideas and interests of dominant socio-economic groups in UK society. However it has not gone uncontested. We can also identify the existence of competing political traditions which challenge aspects or the entirety of, the British Political Tradition. Although competing political traditions resonate asymmetrically, it is through the process of conflict and contestation that changes in the British political system can be explained. From this I then narrate the history of Scottish Devolution to date and offer comment on how this interactive and iterative process continues to inform outcomes since 1999. Overall I argue that the dominant political tradition continues to have a major impact on the British political system.