Davidson predicts ‘surprise’

The Scottish Conservatives will “surprise” people at next year’s Holyrood elections, leader Ruth Davidson has predicted.

She said the party is putting together a “comprehensive manifesto” and insisted the SNP would not be given an “easy ride” on their record in government.

Ms Davidson told Sky News’s Murnaghan programme: “In Scotland right now we’ve got an education system where there are a number of teachers doing excellent work but the results of our pupils are falling.

“We’ve got standards that are stalling. We’ve got a government here who have presided over more than 200 weeks of missed A&E targets because they’re not concentrating on health.”

Ms Davidson told the show the “vibrant” debate over Scotland’s constitutional future has “knocked everything else on to the back pages”.

She said: “The SNP have had an easy ride on their record. Not any longer.”