This wasn’t about No10 ...this was Ruth’s pitch to run Scotland

RUTH Davidson’s thoughtful speech the other night at Glasgow University was a significant statement of intent by a woman who, scant years ago, won leadership of the Scottish Tories as a floundering ingénue.

The address was effectively a manifesto for the devolved government of Scotland, fuelled by the conviction the Scottish Tories could attain it and Davidson’s firm self-belief that she can win it.

And the oration is a reminder how far this feisty figure has come since – and by a fluke, at that. The chap ahead of her on the Glasgow regional Tory list had to pull out, at almost the last moment, after revelations of his financial history. She became an MSP in May 2011 and, six months later, Scottish Tory leader.

That was largely because she was not Murdo Fraser and because she had the full-throated backing of David Cameron, the party machine and some well-placed surrogates in the Scottish media.

Her biggest weakness was her painful lack of political experience; her greatest strengths the willingness to learn, an unshakeable confidence in herself and – after two rather nonchalant predecessors in the post – a capacity for ferocious hard work.

It was the 2014 independence referendum that made Davidson – emerging at last in all her poise, wit and steel – and rewarded finally by the Scottish Tory breakout in the 2016 Scottish parliament elections, capped by the stunning Westminster results last June.

The party won 13 seats in its best electoral outing since 1983, almost casually ended the political careers of, for instance, Angus Robertson and Alex Salmond – and did so on Davidson’s own terms.

Insolent

She refused to take strategic direction from the London leadership – indeed, she endured insolent treatment by such Downing Street aides as Fiona Hill – and yet, but for those 13 seats, Theresa May would not be Prime Minister.

Davidson has established the Tories as the main party of opposition in Scotland.

She has successfully ‘detoxed’ it as a force which sensible people can now support without embarrassment, and she has done so by positioning Scottish Conservatism as the unflinching and reliable party for the Union – and without the ghastly Old Firm baggage that would once have entailed.

Tuesday’s speech was all the more interesting, then, because Davidson made not the slightest reference to independence or the constitution – and instead laid out her priorities for government, on her own and very Scottish terms.

Billed as ‘Building a stronger Britain’ and opening with the ringing declaration that ‘We need to rebuild consent in our capitalist systems, in our institutions and a liberal way of life,’ it seemed superficially a counter attack to the magic money tree Leftism of Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum.

But it was essentially about Holyrood. ‘As we look ahead to the next election in 2021,’ Davidson said, ‘myself, my team, the whole party, needs to show that we are a credible force to run the government.

‘And that requires us to think more deeply about the Scotland we want to help build.’

She wanted more publicprivate collaborations; an outward looking, open minded Scotland. She warned against any back-to-the-Fifties No winding of ‘the clock back to some misremembered golden past’.

Davidson challenged her London leadership’s dislike of immigration, pointing out – correctly – that Scotland needs migrant workers, given our ageing population and a skills shortage.

‘I hope we can create a mature system, which leads to a more settled country,’ she declared, ‘one that respects people and families whose right to live and work here should be unquestioned – like the Windrush families.’

She called for stronger funding of the NHS – and made a clear pitch to younger voters enchanted with Corbynism: affordable housing must be created, and there should be more spending on vocational and technical education. She warned the Tories barely register with young folk – ‘We are losing the argument. Period.’

The speech was most striking because it was an eminently sensible – and most Scottish – assessment of Scottish problems, owing little to the austere take of Theresa May and still less to the High Tory emphasis of, for instance, Jacob Rees-Mogg or the ‘Crikey! What a joke to see chaps like us in politics’ frivolity of Boris Johnson.

It is a reminder both that the Tories, as properly defined, were never a force in Scotland and it was the Unionists who for decades made the running against Labour.

And also that there is an old tradition of Scottish Conservatism being to some degree in courteous opposition to Tory administrations in London.

Attitudes

George Younger, to pick just one example, made plain to Margaret Thatcher that any threat to the Ravenscraig steelworks was, for him, a resignation matter. By contrast, successive Labour First Ministers arguably blew their party’s hold on Holyrood because of their inability to stand up against Tony Blair.

Davidson’s manoeuvrings are a reminder that successful Unionism needs some of the language – and attitudes – of Nationalism. She is wise enough to know how monumentally lucky she has been in her opponents.

Three Scottish Labour leaders – on her watch – have reduced a once-formidable movement to a battered third party. And the sustained (and ongoing) misjudgments of Nicola Sturgeon, from Brexit to the Growth Commission, have lifelong supporters of independence gazing aghast through barely parted fingers. What Davidson’s Glasgow speech emphatically was not was a bid to become Prime Minister. There is no vacancy.

There is no credible mechanism for parachuting her into the Commons outwith a general election. And a woman set on Machiavellian schemes for national power does not choose that moment to start a family.

Anyone fortunate enough to have met Ruth Davidson can attest that she is a grounded, charming and – by the standards of the political class – unassuming woman.

Pressed in 2016 to join Labour MP Angela Eagle on the campaign trail for Remain, she asked impishly if they were really quite sure ‘two shovel-faced flat-topped lesbians’ was quite the image they wanted. Privately, she points out that – so far – she has no experience whatever of government and can scarcely aspire to Downing Street on that basis.

Realistically, too, Davidson knows she has little prospect of Holyrood success if the commentariat – and voters – conclude her ambitions lie elsewhere. Tuesday’s speech was the address of a woman who wants to be First Minister; it attested that she has the brains and grit and heft for the command of Scotland – and that she is fully capable of attaining it.