Ruth: Now I’m fighting to be First Minister
RUTH Davidson yesterday launched a drive to persuade voters she can oust Nicola Sturgeon and become First Minister.
The Scottish Conservative leader announced a major policy relaunch as she delivered a speech outlining her top priorities for the next term at Holyrood.
She said that – after criticising the SNP for failing to ‘do the day job’ while obsessing about trying to break up Britain – the Tories also need to do more to prove to voters they stand for much more than being the ‘No to independence party’.
She also claimed that the Scottish Labour leadership contest can provide an opportunity for the Conservatives to get ahead in proving they are the only real alternative to the SNP.
After outlining details of the party’s approach to tackling the housing crisis, Miss Davidson will also unveil further policies in a series of other areas in the coming weeks. These include addressing the problems in the NHS, improving Scotland’s failing economy and tackling the teacher recruitment crisis.
Speaking at an event organised by IPPR Scotland, a Left-wing think tank, Miss Davidson said: ‘Everyone accepts that Brexit is going to dominate for the coming few months as the negotiations with the Europe Union continue in earnest.
‘But there is also a yearning among many to see a political debate in Scotland focus more heavily on the bread and butter issues that matter to us here at home. So while we in the Scottish Conservatives have rightly complained that the SNP has failed to focus on the day job, we need to demonstrate our wish to set our sights on that task too. And that is my broad priority as we begin a new parliament next week.’
She added: ‘We have to demonstrate we are a party of government. And the work towards that needs to start now.’
Highlands and Islands MSP Donald Cameron is leading a review of
‘Gives us a huge opportunity’
policy where the party will set out its priorities in the coming months.
Miss Davidson said: ‘Perhaps the exciting thing is that, after ten years where we have been locked in the comfort of our own certainties fighting and refighting over the same constitutional ground, none of us in any political party can really say we have the answers to these big questions.
‘But if devolution is for anything, it should be to ensure that we can, through debate and argument, find a better path forward.’
During her speech Miss Davidson proposed new towns to capitalise on what she branded the worst housing crisis since the Second World War. She said the housing market is ‘depriving thousands of young people one of the most basic opportunities in society – the ability to buy and own your home’.
Asked about Scottish Labour’s leadership contest, she said: ‘A leadership election means that the Labour Party is going to have to talk to itself for a period of time of weeks and months. That gives us a huge opportunity to talk to the country.’
Nationalist MSP George Adam said: ‘Ruth Davidson is the ultimate one-trick pony who is finally admitting that the Tories have been utterly obsessed with independence and have nothing else to say.’
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