Speccie says Tory Party to split

First it was the Home Office, now it's the Tories... every dysfunctional unfit-for-purpose institution appears these days to think it will prosper by splitting in half. It works for anemones, I guess.

Anyway, this e-mail has just popped into my inbox, trailing the Spectator's scoop for the week. It would appear to mark the death of the Conservative & Unionist Party:

EXCLUSIVE: how the Conservative Party is planning to split.

The slide towards extinction in Scotland has persuaded the Tories to draw up a blueprint for separation. The Scottish Tories would split off - and Cameron's Conservatives would become the English party

Francis Maude's officials have been secretly drawing up the outline of a 'velvet divorce' with the Scottish Conservatives, which would give the Scottish Tories a new name, a distinct identity, and make the Conservatives officially as well as in practice a party exclusively devoted to seeking power in England and Wales. Such a split would mean the final Tory retreat from Scotland, a historic fissure in British Conservatism, and the death of a party defined by its One Nation Unionism.

I'm assured you can read the story only in this week's Spectator. If it's true, I suspect you'll be able to read it elsewhere soon enough.