David Maddox: Bad trains or Tory troubles?

There was a bit of mischevious speculation this morning amongst the Scottish political press pack at what might be irking Annabel Goldie.
The face of the Tories' Scottish leader looked like thunder when she came into a briefing at the Eric Liddell Centre on Holy Corner in Morningside on the economy chaired by Chris Grayling, the party's Shadow Cabinet spokesman work and pensions.
The top table - Ms Goldie, Mr Grayling and Shadow Scottish Secretary David Mundell - had come in 15 minutes late and it was noticeable that Ms Goldie was not her normal cheery self and barely looked at Mr Grayling. Afterwards the two left separately to go to the same private engagement.
Ms Goldie's aides told me that she was simply frustrated at being late and annoyed with the poor train service which was apparently the cause of her tardiness.
But the talk in the press pack was that Mr Grayling had brought a message from David Cameron that Ms Goldie and the Scottish Conservatives needed to up their game and given a minimum number of seats to win in the next general election or face the consequences.
If that is true, it's probably a little unfair on Ms Goldie who has seen her party make steady progress from a very poor position against a background of historic Scottish antipathy towards the Tories through the use of niche issues on justice and business support. However, it is not nearly as spectacular as some would like to see and in comparison to the Tory recovery in other parts of the UK it looks very slow indeed.
Needless to say Ms Goldie was able to talk through whatever irksome problems she had this morning with Mr Mundell at her favourite haunt which, as regular readers of Alba will know, is the Pizza Express opposite the Scotsman.