Devolution and the Scottish Conservatives: Banal Activism, Electioneering and the Politics of Irrelevance : Manchester University Press : 9780719095566 : 0719095565 : 31 Mar 2014 : This highly readable book, is a unique, ethnographic study of devolution and Scottish politics as well as party political activism more generally. Available in paperback for the first time, it explores how Conservative Party activists who had opposed devolution and the movement for a Scottish Parliament during the 1990s attempted to mobilise politically following their annihilation at the 1997 General Election. It draws on fieldwork conducted in Dumfries and Galloway ? a former stronghold for the Scottish Tories ? to describe how senior Conservatives worked from the assumption that they had endured their own ?crisis' in representation. The material consequences of this crisis included losses of financial and other resources, legitimacy and local knowledge for the Scottish Conservatives. This book ethnograp