Tory Ruth: I value my mental health too much to be leader
Scot says she will never become PM
I will not be a candidate. You have to want it and I don’t want to be PM
RUTH DAVIDSON RULES HERSELF OUT OF TOP JOB
SCOTTISH Tory leader Ruth Davidson yesterday ruled herself out of ever taking the party’s top job – for the sake of her mental health and relationship.
The 39-year-old, who is pregnant with her first child, said she had suicidal thoughts when she was younger and bore the scars of self-harming.
Ms Davidson’s popularity north of the border has led to her being tipped as a future leader of the UK Conservative party.
But dashing the hopes of Tory modernisers who want her at the helm, she told an interviewer: “I value my relationship and my mental health too much for it. I will not be a candidate. You have to want it and I don’t want to be Prime Minister.”
She added: “On a human level, the idea I would have a child in Edinburgh and then go down to London four days a week and leave it up here is actually offensive to me.”
During the interview with the Sunday Times, she revealed how her arms were crisscrossed with self-harm scars.
And in extracts from her memoirs, published with the chat, she said the suicide of a boy from her home village when she was 17 plunged her into a “tailspin”. A year later she was diagnosed with clinical depression but the medication gave her “dark, terrible dreams” and she “started having suicidal thoughts”.
Ms Davidson also wrote of being “still frightened” of going back to the “psychological place I once inhabited”.
The kickboxing enthusiast, a former Territorial Army Signaller, added: “When I have periods of heightening anxiety, or I feel the weight of the black blanket start to descend, I go back to what I know works for me: structure, exercise, forward momentum, measurable outcomes.
“Sometimes that’s hard in a job that’s a hundred miles an hour.”
The politician, who has been targeted by online trolls, admitted the abuse gets to her, saying: “I just think I do my crying off-camera.”
And she rubbished suggestions she is having an IVF baby with partner Jen Wilson to broaden her political appeal.
“I’m not having a child for other people,” she insisted. “This is something I have wanted for a very long time – something Jen and I together have wanted. This is not about my job.”