Apocalypto Now?

William Wallace made an unlikely cameo at the Conservative Party’s conference in Manchester this week, as Russell Findlay invoked the movie Braveheart.

The Scottish Tory leader had a laugh at First Minister John Swinney’s expense, suggesting the SNP leader believed the 1995 film was a documentary, with Findlay pledging to fight the next election to secure “freedom” from SNP taxes and policies.

Given the predicament faced by the Conservative Party at present, other Mel Gibson movies might have made for a more fitting reference.

‘The Edge of Darkness’, perhaps. ‘The Expendables’ would be another option. ‘Apocalypto’?

The latter depicts the collapse of a Mayan civilisation, though the word derives from the Greek for unveiling.

There has been much unveiling of policies in Manchester this week, the most eye-catching of which was the announcement that the Tories would scrap stamp duty south of the border, while establishing a new "golden rule" to cut government borrowing and taxes, ensuring half of all savings would be put towards reducing the deficit.

On the North Sea, UK party leader Kemi Badenoch said in her keynote speech her “very simple” policy is to “drill our oil and gas now”.

The position has already won her an admirer in US President Donald Trump, with the pair reportedly having discussed the matter recently at Windsor Castle.

“Countries that have cheap energy are growing. Countries that don’t are stagnating. We’ve got to get cheap energy,” Badenoch said in The Spectator.

Policy announcements followed a commitment at the start of the week to pull the UK out of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR), despite concerns it would breach the Good Friday Agreement and the UK-EU trade deal.

It all represented fodder for the party’s traditional support base, but were enough of them listening? Policies, after all, only carry so much weight in an era in which vibes often appear to matter more.

Indeed, despite Badenoch’s insistence that there had been a “buzz” at the conference, the number of empty seats at speeches and events suggested otherwise.

While Tory politicians might rather avoid acknowledging it publicly, everyone inside and outside the conference hall in Manchester knew the reason for the gloomy atmosphere.

Conservative voters, members, councillors and former parliamentarians are jumping ship to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party, with more likely to follow amid growing belief it really can supplant the Tories as the predominant party of the right, as poll after poll suggests.

With a Westminster election unlikely in the next couple of years, Badenoch, or whoever follows her, may yet have enough time to rescue a party that dominated British politics for much of the last two centuries.

There is no such luxury for Findlay or the other leaders of Scotland’s traditional political parties, however.

For them, the battle is fast-approaching, and tried and tested attack lines – like Findlay’s pitch to the anti-SNP vote in his Braveheart speech – may prove outdated against the force they face.