Ruth playing the long game with political aplomb

IF, as some people expect, Ruth Davidson does go on to greatness in UK politics, then last week’s Conservative Party conference will be remembered as something of a turning point. This was the moment she put down a marker, making it clear to all in her party that there was real steel in her core.

While most of her political colleagues are prepared to fawn to their leaders in public and bitch about them in private, Miss Davidson took the opposite tack.

She stood up for what she believed in, even when this meant throwing a little bit of mud at Theresa May, just before she gave her first leader’s address to conference. It was a brave, gutsy and confident move.

The issue was immigration. The theme of the Tory conference was one of general antagonism towards foreigners.

Firms would have to keep lists of workers from overseas, we were told, and curbing immigration would be the goal of the Brexit negotiations – whatever effect this would have on trade.

This sort of ‘dog whistle’ message obviously grated on Miss Davidson. She had been given the prized slot just before the Prime Minister so she decided to use it.

This warm-up speech is usually packed with enough patriotic soundbites to get the crowd revved up and enough jokes to get them in the mood to cheer their leader to the rafters.

But Miss Davidson didn’t stick to the script. Instead, she made it clear that she disagreed with the anti-foreigner rhetoric and the baser, xenophobic politics. She pointedly reminded the Tory faithful that EU citizens living here had families too, that they were people with fears and concerns and children to look after.

Most politicians would have been too scared to do anything like this. After all, to come ‘off message’ just before the leader’s speech could easily result in political suicide. But Miss Davidson didn’t seem to care.

There was more. Time and again last week she made it clear she really didn’t care for Boris Johnson. So, having taken the extraordinary step of publicly questioning one of the PM’s key themes, the Scottish Tory leader went out of her way to insult the other big beast in her party.

This was Miss Davidson deciding it was better to stand up for herself rather than play the traditional political games of deference and back-stabbing.

It may well cause her problems in the short term. But it will do her nothing but good long-term.

That is because she is developing a reputation for principled hardness, for taking on anybody in the party, whoever they are, and standing up for herself.

This approach is very rare for politicians, most of whom are simply looking for the next head to stand on as they lever themselves towards the top. So how ambitious is she? It was clear last week that Miss Davidson’s future career path had become one of the conference obsessions.

London-based journalists were fixated by it, the activists – who queued round the block to pack out her fringe meetings – were desperate to know when she would enter the Commons and the party leaders were pretty keen to know too. Miss Davidson did her best to tread a neutral path, saying she had unfinished business at Holyrood but leaving the impression that she is keeping her options open. According to sources close to the Scottish Tory leader, she is unlikely to make any sort of move into UK politics before the next Scottish elections in 2021.

She intends to see out this term anyway. If things go very well for her party and she manages to grab a share of power in some sort of grand unionist coalition, then she might stay on.

But if the Tories slip backwards then she might resign and look for either a Westminster byelection to fight or wait until the next UK General Election to try to enter the Commons.

Miss Davidson knows she doesn’t have to rush because she has youth on her side. Even if she waits until 2022 or 2023 before heading to Westminster, she will still only be in her early 40s.

THERE will be plenty of time for her to climb the greasy pole. After all, Mrs May didn’t enter No 10 until she was almost 60. This is why the Scot is taking a calculated risk by standing up to the PM and Mr Johnson. They will be cashing in from the lucrative lecture circuit by the time Miss Davidson is ready to move up towards the top in London so their influence will be limited.

So she is taking her time, and forging a reputation for principled hardness, a reputation already burnished by her achievements in pushing the party to second place in Scotland. That in itself has given her the confidence and the clout to stand up to the party leadership.

But it has also made her the darling of the party. No speaker – with the exception of Mrs May – received a louder or more raucous response from activists.

Indeed, the only figure to be greeted more warmly was her old antagonist, Mr Johnson.

However, being seen as the natural opponent of someone as divisive and flakey as the Foreign Secretary might work out well for her in the long run and that is what Miss Davidson is doing.

She is playing the long game and, so far, it does seem to be working remarkably well: watch this space.