Margaret Thatcher lost the party more votes, as most Scots felt they had not consented to her economic policies. Support for devolution grew, paving the way for the opening of the Scottish Parliament in 1999, which in turn expedited the rise of the SNP.

Conservative decline changed the electoral geography. Forerunners of the Liberal Democrats picked up seats in the Highlands and islands. In the north-east voters swapped the Tories for the SNP. But Labour was the main beneficiary of Conservative woes, winning the most Scottish votes in every general election from 1964 to 2010.

The independence referendum of 2014 changed all that. In the general election of 2015 Labour was reduced from 41 seats to only one, as supporters of independence coalesced around the SNP.

Now opponents of independence are coming together, in a few places to the benefit of the Lib Dems, but mostly around the Tories. Most of the party's gains in polls have come from unionists fleeing Labour, which also opposes independence but with less conviction. In this month's local elections the Tories won 25% of first-preference votes, up from 13% in 2012; Labour dropped from 31% to 21%. In Stonehaven Roy Skene, an oil engineer, explains that he "doesn't see what good independence would do", adding that he can no longer trust Labour to resist the SNP.