Politicians as human beings get my vote

FOR every woman who has been through the trials of IVF, they are words which will strike a chord. It was, writes Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson in her new book, a process that was ‘invasive, joyous, mortifying, fearful and hopeful’.

She recalled giving herself hormone injections in a toilet in Geneva airport on the way to the World Economic Forum, persuading her embryologist that getting on a plane to Afghanistan several hours after implantation wouldn’t be stressful as she’d be ‘sitting down, reading brief notes and watching movies’, and a particularly excruciating encounter with a nurse.

‘There is a special feeling of wanting the earth to swallow you whole when you are led in a hospital gown to the room where an internal examination is going to take place by a nurse who decides to strike up conversation with ‘I saw you on the telly last night, talking about the NHS’.

One can only imagine. But perhaps the most striking thing about Davidson’s revelations is that she is making them at all. Politicians don’t do this. Not many of them, anyway.

They don’t open up. They don’t make themselves vulnerable, and they certainly don’t talk about their feelings.

Take Theresa May, who would rather dance like a robot than betray anything remotely resembling a real emotion. Or former first minister Alex Salmond who once, when I asked him how he was feeling (it was an election day, after all), refused to respond.

Of course, many politicians will tell you that opening up is a fool’s errand.

Why expose yourself to criticism, to sneering, to political jockeying, when you can keep up the pretence that you’re actually a perfect person, with a perfect life, doing a perfect job? Well I don’t know about you, but I like my politicians to be human beings. I find it reassuring. Frailties, insecurities even mundanities are what make us who we are, even politicians. They might just make us better at our jobs too.

Davidson has never done things the easy way. From being run over by a truck as a child to breaking her back in her twenties, wrestling with her sexuality and her faith (something else she has opened up about) to becoming leader of her party mere months after joining Holyrood, her refusal to play by the rules, and her honesty about it, is refreshing in a world of identikit politicians.

She has even spoken of her ambivalence over taking on the top job in No 10, something an increasing number of Tory voices appear to want her to do.

Perhaps this openness is catching on. Last weekend Nicola Sturgeon opened up about the ‘loneliness’ of being First Minister and the difficulties it causes her job and her relationships.

And on Thursday, Scottish MP Jo Swinson became the first member to attend a debate in the House of Commons chamber with her baby in tow.

How heartening, in a time where so much of politics seems brutal and divided, to see that there is real strength in vulnerability.