Ruth: I’ll NEVER run for PM ... I value my mental health too much
Ruth tells of suicidal thoughts as teenager
RUTH Davidson stunned the Tory faithful last night by ruling out ever running for the party leadership.
The Scottish Tory leader revealed she had suffered from suicidal thoughts as a teenager and now valued her mental health too highly to want to be Prime Minister.
Asked if she would ever run, she replied: ‘No. I value my relationship and my mental health too much for it. I will not be a candidate.’
In an interview with The Sunday Times, Ms Davidson says her teenage years were plagued by selfharm and suicidal thoughts.
She had bouts of depression resembled a ‘smothering black blanket over my head’. As if to prove that, Ms Davidson reportedly pulled up her sleeve to reveal selfharm scars on her arms.
Making clear she would not be a candidate to replace Theresa May, she said: ‘You have to want it, and I
‘I went into a tailspin, punching walls’
don’t want to be Prime Minister.’
Her refusal will lead to despair among many liberal Tories who have seen the gay, kick-boxing Scot as the salvation of their party and a better choice than rivals, including Boris Johnson.
But the 39-year-old, who is pregnant with her first child, made clear she would put her family first and ruled out moving to Westminster.
She dismissed the prospect of going south to become an MP or taking a peerage as ‘b ***** ks’.
‘On a human level, the idea that I would have a child in Edinburgh and then immediately go down to London four days a week and leave it up here is actually offensive to me,’ Ms Davidson said.
Her comments came ahead of the publication of her memoirs. Extracts released last night in The Sunday Times contain confessions of depression and alcohol abuse.
She recounts how, when she was 17 and at university, a boy from her home village killed himself: ‘I went into a total tailspin. I started hurting myself: punching walls, cutting my stomach and arms with blades or broken glass, drinking far, far too much and becoming belligerent and angry.’
Ms Davidson reveals that at 18 she was diagnosed with clinical depression.
But since then she has managed to conquer the illness by building structure into her life, taking regular exercise and moderating her drinking.
Earlier this year, Ms Davidson announced that she was expecting a baby with partner Jen Wilson. Last week, she described her pregnancy as ‘joyous, mortifying, fearful and hopeful’.
In extracts from her new book, Yes She Can, Ms Davidson reveals the range of emotions she has experienced during her pregnancy and the ‘interesting situations’ she faced, like preparing for IVF treatment while travelling to the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.
Sometimes this would prove deeply embarrassing, as she reveals in an extract: ‘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”.’
The Scottish Conservatives have seen their fortunes soar under Ms Davidson’s leadership, now stretching back to 2011 following the resignation of party stalwart Annabelle Goldie. At the 2016 Holyrood election, the Tories emerged as the second-biggest party in the Scottish parliament.