Davidson may run as party leader in 2024
RUTH Davidson has suggested she could make a bid to succeed Boris Johnson as Conservative leader in four or five years’ time.
In an interview with Stella magazine, the former leader of the Scottish Tories, who is often touted as one of the party’s star performers, said she probably had “more experience than anyone in the party on how to lead from opposition”.
The remarks mark an apparent shift since Ms Davidson’s insistence last year that she would never run for the Conservative leadership.
“I value my relationship and my mental health too much for it. I will not be a candidate,” she said last September, shortly before the birth of her son, Finn.
“It may well be that my time in politics doesn’t come again until we’re in opposition,” Ms Davidson, 41, told Stella.
“If someone tapped on my door and asked me to help, I’d be there in a heartbeat. But at the moment, I’ve got four or five years when my son isn’t at school and that is not a time that I’m contemplating moving 450 miles away for the majority of the week. It’s are more politics.”
The next election after Thursday’s poll is due to take place in May 2024. Ms Davidson’s comments suggest she could bid to succeed Mr Johnson as Conservative leader in the event that he remains in Downing Street until then and the Tories are subsequently voted out of office. Ms Davidson is due to take part in ITV’s election night coverage on Thursday.
She resigned as Scottish Conservative leader in August after falling out with Mr Johnson over the prospect of a no-deal Brexit.
Separately, Ms Davidson revealed she can receive “up to 1,000 abusive texts and tweets a day. It wears you down,” she said. “I’ve had a lot of ‘string her up by a lamppost’ type stuff.
“The ones I have difficulty with are when people take a photo of you without you being aware and put it on the internet. And I had an incident where someone got my mobile phone number and made threats. It turned out not to be that sinister, but I didn’t know that when I was being told they wanted to burn all gays.”
Interview: Stella