Liddle Ruth Davidson

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-78590-210-9
Verlag: Biteback Publishing
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 336 Seiten

Ruth Davidson has enjoyed a stratospheric rise to prominence within the Scottish Conservative Party, winning her surprise leadership victory an astonishing six months after becoming an MSP. Under her redoubtable leadership, the Tory Party have revitalised their fortunes north of the border, more than doubling their seats and overtaking Labour for the first time in sixty years. A lesbian, kick-boxing former Territorial Army reservist, Davidson has broken the mould of both Tory and Scottish politics and has been touted as a future Prime Minister. Yet little is known of Ms Davidson and her remarkable journey outside of Scotland. With Scottish politics in flux following the hard-fought independence referendum and Britain's imminent departure from the EU, Davidson's profile will only become more prominent as she heads up the official opposition. This first biography of one of Britain's rising political stars examines how Davidson rejuvenated the toxic Tory brand and asks what the future holds both in Scotland and beyond for this extraordinary young politician.

Andrew Liddle is the political correspondent for the Press and Journal, a daily regional newspaper serving northern and highland Scotland. Liddle has an intimate knowledge of the Scottish political landscape and political history. He lives in Aberdeen.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Liddle, Andrew

Leseproben

INTRODUCTION

A NIGHT TO REMEMBER

The Royal Highland Showground is an unlikely place for an unprecedented victory.

Nestled between Edinburgh Airport and one of Scotland’s busiest roads, the cavernous hall is better known for hosting car boot sales than political turning points.

Yet, at 4.20 a.m. on 6 May 2016, as Ruth Davidson took the stage, which that weekend would play host to the capital’s antiques fair, she was celebrating not just a personal but also a party triumph.

As the cameras flashed and the film rolled, all eyes were on this stocky, gay ex-soldier who had confounded her critics and defied expectation. Nails bitten to the quick, she had earlier woken to day three of a gruelling tension headache. Though her skin was tarred by a rash – she was closing in on a forty-hour shift at the end of six weeks on the campaign trail, her third in less than two years – she was brimming with delight. Not only had she defeated the SNP in her seat of Edinburgh Central – where her party had previously come fourth – she had also led the Tories back to the front line of Scottish politics.

The scale of the victory is perhaps best confirmed by Ruth herself, who, despite striding onto the stage with her trademark confidence, had prepared no victory speech. Instead, she was left to swiftly adapt her notes conceding defeat to the SNP candidate, Alison Dickie, who had been the favourite in the Edinburgh Central contest.

Always superstitious – she wears the same pair of Tory-blue pants emblazoned with the words ‘election night’ for every count – Ruth was perhaps wary of jinxing what was clearly becoming a sensational result for her party as she spoke. But, having been shunted between media interviews throughout the night, sweating under her black trouser suit, she also had a more fractured picture of how her party were performing than the close aides at her side. ‘One thing we’re learning as tonight goes on is that there are people right across the country who are sending the SNP a message,’ she told a cocktail of cheering party activists, journalists and glum rivals. ‘The voices and the decision we made as a country will not be ignored.’ Somewhat gingerly, she added: ‘If I am by any small measure elected to be the leader of the opposition party, I promise I will serve to the best of my abilities – and it is a role I will take seriously.’

Her caution is intriguing, if surprising. Throughout the campaign, polls had suggested Ruth’s Tories were on the brink of replacing Labour as the party of opposition, although none had predicted the scale of the victory. Of course, her language had been puckered with characteristic boisterousness over the previous six weeks, regularly insisting – rightly, it emerged – that her party was on course for its best ever result in a Scottish Parliament election. The 37-year-old’s entire campaign had been based around the slogan ‘Strong Opposition’ – which must make the Scottish Conservatives one of the very few major mainstream parties in history to go into an election categorically saying they did not want to win it. If she was embarrassed when a copy of her manifesto was discovered containing the emphatic statement ‘This is not a plan for government’, she need not have worried.

By the close of the night, Ruth’s party would count thirty-one MSPs – more than double the number they had started with in the morning – while Labour had collapsed, retaining just twenty-four of their thirty-eight seats. It was her party’s best performance since devolution in 1999, gaining 22 per cent or more on both the constituency and the regional list vote. By pushing Labour into third place north of the border, the Scottish Conservatives re-formed a political landscape not seen in Scotland since 1918.

By the close of the election, back home with her partner Jen, snuggled in her pyjamas, glass of rum in hand, Ruth was certainly the Leader of the Opposition – and by a large measure. It was, as Prime Minister David Cameron would tell Ruth, ‘a historic result’.

There is no doubt that Ruth is central to understanding and explaining the Tory resurgence in Scotland. Without her, it never would have happened.

However, as she alluded to in her hastily prepared victory speech, the context of Scottish post-referendum politics is also important. Despite the defeat of the Yes campaign – driven by the SNP – in 2014’s Scottish independence referendum, the question of the future of the United Kingdom remained far from answered, as demonstrated by the subsequent surge in support for Nicola Sturgeon’s Nationalists. Just days after the vote, thousands of Scots would start joining the party, leading membership to top more than 100,000 by March 2015. Ms Sturgeon herself attracted such large crowds during a speaking tour of Scotland that she was likened more to a pop star than a politician. Come the general election in May, that support would translate into a near total wipe-out of other parties in Scotland, with the SNP taking fifty-six of the fifty-nine seats available and Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories left with just a seat apiece north of the border.

That surge in support, coupled with Ms Sturgeon’s rhetoric, made supporters of the Union increasingly anxious about a possible rerun of the 2014 contest that had at the time been branded a ‘once in a generation’ vote. Concern among those opposed to independence only grew as the SNP talked up the possibility of a Brexit vote triggering another referendum on the future of the Union. Even now, despite the SNP losing six of their seats in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, the constitutional question remains at the forefront of politics.

With that context, Ruth made opposition to a second referendum one of her key messages ahead of the 2016 vote. There were no ifs or buts. The Tories under Ruth would not countenance even the slightest whisper of a second vote in any circumstance. In contrast to then Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who appeared to flip-flop on her support for the Union, Ruth had a coherent message that clearly resonated with voters. While Labour – and to a lesser extent the Liberal Democrats – went fishing for pro-independence voters they could never catch, Ruth was able to launch a strong appeal to the 55 per cent of the population who voted No in 2014.

It was a strategy with strong echoes of Lynton Crosby’s campaign for the Tories in the 2015 general election, which featured the now notorious image of former SNP leader Alex Salmond with then Labour leader Ed Miliband in his top pocket. Some commentators, notably Aidan Kerr and David Torrance, have suggested this strategy – and the resulting success for the Tories – represents the beginning of the ‘Ulsterisation’ of Scottish politics: that is, the notion that voters will pick their parties based on allegiance to, or disdain for, the Union above all else. Yet while some voters clearly made their choice based on fear of or support for a second independence referendum, such an argument largely ignores the role Ruth played in the contest.

Like Margaret Thatcher, Ruth Davidson does not look like a Tory leader.

Yet, like the Iron Lady, she understands the strengths of honing her image in synthesis with her policies.

Gone are the handbags and pearls. Aquascutum skirts have been replaced by dark trouser suits. Standing at just over five foot, Ruth’s hair is cut short over her shoulders. Her face has a remarkable ability to be both stern and cheery, often simultaneously. Her personality, too, is one of contrast. As a devout Christian but also a lesbian, she struggled for much of her early life with her sexuality. Despite being a former signaller in the Territorial Army, she is quite the opposite of military stuffiness, being famed for her great bonhomie, particularly on the campaign trail. Ruth has, for instance, been pictured riding a buffalo and driving a tank – photo calls most modern politicians would run a mile from. Her performances on such hit TV shows as Have I Got News For You have helped reinforce her reputation – particularly in Westminster – as a gregarious, ‘normal’ person. She is charming, but also notably ruthless, showing no mercy to her political opponents, most especially those in her own party. More remarkably, of course, this unconventional, adventurous young politician is a Tory, but one who appears to have a greater sense of social justice than her Etonian compatriots south of the border. But most importantly, she is Scottish – not just in nationality, but in outlook and persona.

It was this character that was centrally responsible for revitalising the Tories in Scotland by shaking off the image of the Conservatives as an English party representing English interests.

While it may be difficult for younger generations to imagine, Scotland was not always a Tory wasteland. On the contrary, in the early part of the twentieth century the land north of Hadrian’s Wall was, to a large extent, a Conservative stronghold. In 1955, the party would secure a majority of votes and seats in Scotland – a landslide that would only be surpassed in scope and scale by the SNP in 2015. Following that result, however, the party began a slow decline.

The Unionist Party, as it was known pre-1965, merged with the Conservative Party in England, becoming the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party – ceding control to London Central Office with it. While there was still an appetite for centre-right politics in Scotland, following the merger the Tories steadily lost support to parties perceived to have Scots’ interests closer at heart.

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