The political beat... and TV reviews as a cub reporter

THE Glenrothes Gazette was as good a place as any to train as a journalist. It was an area Ruth knew well, having grown up only eight miles away in Lundin Links.

Like many post-industrial Fife towns, Glenrothes has high levels of unemployment and social deprivation. Almost a fifth of the town ranks among the most deprived areas in Scotland and, like many trainee reporters, 21-year-old Ruth started with the hard graft of drugs deaths, court and crime.

Yet she would also cover the council beat – a mainstay of local journalism. Much of this revolved around planning applications and drumming up local anger about unpopular decisions – but it was nevertheless a fundamentally political beat. Ruth would come to know many local politicians and witness firsthand the often dry machinations of local government.

Like most cub reporters, Ruth did more than her fair share of grunt work. Copies of the weekly paper from her time there reveal a plethora of reports on church meetings and coffee mornings.

She was also landed – perhaps not to her chagrin – with writing the regular ‘Couch Potato’ TV column. A beaming byline picture of a youthful Ruth was accompanied by the future Tory leader’s pertinent insight into the latest soap opera plots and cooking shows.

But one news story in particular, on the candidates for the Central Fife constituency, provides a clear example of how quickly Ruth’s career would take off. For the piece in the early 2000s, almost a decade before she entered politics, she interviewed one Jeremy Balfour – the Conservative hopeful – about his chances.

In fact, he would not win a seat until the 2016 Holyrood election, where he serves under Ruth’s leadership.