I WAS invited to attend the Journalists' Charity event in Glasgow on Friday.

It was a great event which raised over £25,000 for good causes - and the guest speaker at the event was David Cameron.

He spoke well and, with a UK General Election soon, the Conservative Party is looking good in the polls.

A new survey into British attitudes shows that Scotland has moved to the right.

We are keen to freeze income and council tax, reduce small business rates and we're more opposed to redistributing wealth from the rich to the less well-off.

Cameron's "compassionate Conservatism" should play right into our hands but, shy of a miracle, Scotland will never vote Conservative.

The smooth-talking, air-brushed leader knows his party will never make an impact in Scotland - we will always be more left-wing and public sector minded than the rest of the UK.

Don't get me wrong - we're not happy with Labour as Gordon Brown's leadership has been tarnished by the recession, MPs' expenses, the banking crisis and bankers' bonuses.

Of course in Scotland, our devolved SNP government, smaller parties and independents dilute the share of the vote going to major parties.

Even so, Cameron's "year of change" is unlikely to move Scottish voters. Why?

The poll tax, the legacy of Margaret Thatcher and the political and social changes during New Labour continue to make Conservatism a difficult sell in Scotland.

Many Scots still associate the party with "that woman" and trends show Conservative is still a dirty word.

In 1979 Thatcher had 22 MPs in Scotland, John Major returned 11 in 1992 and in 1997 Tony Blair's New Labour Government managed to wipe the Conservatives off the political map with no blue MPs surviving.

They managed to pull just one Conservative seat back as recently as the 2005 General Election.

When New Labour rose to power in the mid 1990s, Blair - a Scotsman born in Edinburgh - moved into the centre ground of politics where the Tories used to be.

New Labour became a party for everyone, which won them the 1997 election on the back of Tory sleaze.

He came to power just as 24-hour rolling news coverage was taking off and so became the first prominent politician to make full use of spin doctors.

We became used to soundbites, photo opportunities and media-management, all in front of the cameras 24/7.

Cameron is from the Blair school - he's well-presented, seems like a pleasant enough guy at first and is strictly media managed.

He used to work in PR so knows the advantages of distancing himself from his upper-class upbringing with compassionate policies and a strong focus on climate change and welfare to win over Scotland.

But we're sick of the spin and can see right through it better now than under Blair.

For many, Cameron is just another conveyer-belt English Etonian politician, with style over substance, and someone who'll never capture the imagination when he wears blue stripes on his stuffed shirt.

The social change since Blair has been marked and people have access to a wealth of information.

They can read past the spin and evaluate policies for themselves.

Theresa May once labelled the Tories "the nasty party".

In Scotland, because of Thatcher's apparently anti-Scottish policies in the shipyards, mines and the devastating impact of the poll tax, we still think of them like that.

Bringing back the Conservative Party is still a taboo subject in our pubs and I find that fascinating because Thatcher's rule came to an end 20 years ago - but we still haven't forgiven or forgotten.

Even though the Conservatives should be winning over Scotland with the most popular leader they've had for a generation and more compassionate policies which we seem ready for, I wonder if we will never embrace them again?