Ruth is headed for the top. Lazy Tory passengers should alight immediately

POLITICIAN of the Year is a concept to be viewed with the utmost suspicion. It’s like Top Ten Estate Agents or World’s Greatest Traffic Warden. Surely giving them an award only encourages them.

Ruth Davidson has picked up the gong for the second year in a row, a reflection of the remarkable gains made by the Scottish Conservatives in June’s General Election.

Miss Davidson may have been handed another prize in the shape of Scottish Labour’s new leader Richard Leonard. The staunch socialist was unveiled as Kezia Dugdale’s successor over the weekend and already the Tories can spy an opportunity. If the Yorkshireman drags his party out into the wilds of Corbynite Leftism – he campaigned on raising taxes to the tune of £4billion – he risks alienating middle-income public sector workers who hitherto saw Labour as the best bet for balancing economic growth and social justice. The next Holyrood election could become a straight fight between the SNP and the Tories.

That Miss Davidson senses this was evident in a speech she gave on Saturday in Perth. She said: ‘My party must step up to do the job that people in Scotland desperately want to see: holding the SNP to account. To oppose the Nationalists’ obsession with independence – and to set out a mainstream alternative: improving schools, investing in services and supporting business.’

Sacrifice

Her first test will be the SNP’s heavily-hinted plans to put up taxes, something Miss Davidson opposes. The pitfall she must avoid is being painted as a guardian of privilege. Yes, most high earners are hard workers and their affluence reflects many years of risk, sacrifice and pluck.

But to those on the other end of the income scale, the very people the Tories have to win over, their own long hours and hard graft hasn’t paid off anywhere near as handsomely.

The Conservative chief has to make the case that, whether they hit basic rate payers or those in a higher bracket, tax rises impact the whole economy. You might think your GP could afford to pay extra – and maybe they could – but the next time a job comes up down south, the prospect of keeping more of their own money might just tip the scale in favour of a move.

Rallying a taxpayers’ revolt against the SNP would be a major step in any Ruth Davidson journey to the office of First Minister.

Team Tory has a ready-made template for taking an opposition party into government, courtesy of Alex Salmond. When he regained the reins of the SNP in 2004, Mr Salmond set about wooing the voters he needed to jemmy open the door of Bute House. Labour supporters knew their party had run out of steam yet eyed the Nationalists dubiously. The spectre of ‘Tartan Tories’ had faded but they still had to be convinced that the SNP had their interests at heart.

So the Salmond pitch promised to save under-threat hospital services, reduce class sizes, and provide more free childcare. Then he turned to Middle Scotland, their eyebrows as sharply arched at the prospect of a separatist rabble in charge. To these voters, Mr Salmond sang a sweet song of moderation: Scrapping or cutting business rates for small firms and putting more police on the streets.

The SNP nosed the 2007 election not because they won the voters’ hearts but because they secured their trust. Scots do not yet trust the Tories with their schools or their hospitals and the Tories have no hope of winning until they do.

The object is not to convert the electorate but to convince them that, whatever their misgivings about the Tories, First Minister Ruth Davidson would have the ideas and the determination to turn around a struggling NHS and put excellence back at the heart of Scottish education. All the bullish bombast about safeguarding the Union will amount to naught if they cannot do that. Tactics and presentation are overdue an overhaul. The party needs better candidates and more rigorous vetting. Some of the characters who slipped through during the local elections were an embarrassment and a few of the MSPs would struggle to recognise themselves in the street. The mixed bag at Holyrood has hindered the Tories’ scope to do what all good oppositions are supposed to go: Rack up ministerial scalps.

Foolhardy

That Fergus Ewing survived the farm payments fiasco and Michael Matheson’s remake of Keystone Cops is still on the go speaks volumes about Nicola Sturgeon but it hardly recommends the political mettle of the Tory benches.

Ever since they found themselves a leader who could win votes, the Scottish Conservatives have allowed themselves to become the Ruth Davidson Party and relied on their figurehead’s personal efforts and punter appeal to pull them forward.

This has engendered a complacency in some, a blithe flick of the wrist and ‘Ruth will fix it’ in response to every challenge. While Miss Davidson has carried them this far, the rest of the party will have to put its shoulder into it if it wants to get over the line. There are a number of frontbenchers who sorely need to toughen up and several behind them who ought to be put on notice to raise their game.

It would be foolhardy to attempt a prediction about the 2021 election. Anything can happen in these times of political turbulence and downright weirdness. We could wake up tomorrow to learn Jack McConnell is becoming a newsreader on North Korean TV or Christine Grahame has agreed to star in a pilot for The Only Way is Ettrick. But this we do know: The SNP is no longer the unbeatable electoral machine it was just a few years ago. If the Tories can exploit the Nationalists’ weaknesses and convince voters a Conservative government could protect public services without painful tax hikes, Ruth Davidson might just land herself a title even grander than Politician of the Year.