Could kick-boxing Ruth be Mrs Thatcher Mk II?
LOYAL Thatcherites are immersed in the new volume of biographer Charles Moore’s account of her glory days. So what are the prospects for a Mrs T Mark II?
A call by Education Secretary Nicky Morgan to ensure the party considers a female contender has fallen on deaf ears. Ms Morgan is sticking to her guns and tells me: ‘Theresa May should consider backing me’. Cheeky, I grant you.
Not all of Dave’s sisterhood are onside, however. Amber Rudd, the power-jacketed Energy Secretary, tells friends she’s ‘not much bothered’ if the Tories put up a woman as potential leader or not.
Might a new female leader come from outside the present political Premier League? The wow-factor speech at the party’s conference was given by Ruth Davidson, leader of the Scottish Tories. Ruth was a surprise hit with a sunshiny message: ‘No one will tell our story for us. And no one will talk to that future unless we do it ourselves,’ she cried.
One sceptical minister carped that it was ‘jolly hard to work out what Ms Davidson was on about’. But her pizzazz impressed the chaps. The Prime Minister, I hear, sent her personal congratulations.
Davidson is a compeducated, proud lesbian from a working-class family who lists kick-boxing as a hobby.
‘She’s like Dave’s dream of candidate modernisation come true,’ sighs an aide. Watch out, Nicola Sturgeon.