Impassioned speech that helped detoxify the Tories

TOWARDS the end of 2013, Ruth Davidson took a significant step on the path to detoxifying the Scottish Conservatives.

It was a journey that began even before she entered politics – but it would allow her to make her most eloquent speech and reaffirm her leadership.

The Marriage and Civil Partnership (Scotland) Bill, which would legalise same-sex marriage in Scotland, was a free vote.

This was politically convenient for Ruth in particular, with the notion of same-sex marriages being most controversial among the Conservative ranks. Indeed, when the legislation was finally passed, eight of the MSPs who opposed it were Tories, with seven coming from the SNP benches and three from Labour.

Given there were only 15 Tory MSPs, however, that means more than 50 per cent of Ruth’s party opposed the Bill.

In the chamber, Ruth dropped her attack-dog demeanour in favour of impassioned rhetoric.

‘I do not want the next generation of young gay people to grow up as I did, believing that marriage is something that they can never have,’ she said. Ruth would later admit that she felt deeply conflicted about the vote because of her faith.

Predictably, the MSPs who opposed the Bill did so on religious grounds.

‘I am not ashamed to say that on returning to my parliamentary office after the vote, I cried deep, sobbing tears of relief and release and joy and pain and pride and dozens of other emotions all mixed up together,’ Ruth said after the Bill passed.

‘In truth, I didn’t really know why I was crying – I hadn’t expected to – but I couldn’t stop for a full five minutes.’