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- Herausgeber: Biteback Publishing
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
- Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2018
Ruth Davidson has enjoyed a stratospheric rise to prominence within the Scottish Conservative Party, winning her surprise leadership victory an astonishing six months after becoming an MSP. Under her redoubtable leadership, the Tory Party have revitalised their fortunes north of the border, more than doubling their seats and overtaking Labour for the first time in sixty years. A lesbian, kick-boxing former Territorial Army reservist, Davidson has broken the mould of both Tory and Scottish politics and has been touted as a future Prime Minister. Yet little is known of Ms Davidson and her remarkable journey outside of Scotland. With Scottish politics in flux following the hard-fought independence referendum and Britain's imminent departure from the EU, Davidson's profile will only become more prominent as she heads up the official opposition. This first biography of one of Britain's rising political stars examines how Davidson rejuvenated the toxic Tory brand and asks what the future holds both in Scotland and beyond for this extraordinary young politician.
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For Chris and Freddie, sorry about the Bush
CONTENTS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Ruth Davidson’s rise to political prominence has been short and stratospheric. She has lived through – and helped shape – some of the most politically turbulent times in Scottish – and British – politics.
The aim of this book is to consider Ruth’s role in recent political history – particularly the independence referendum, the EU referendum and, most importantly, the 2016 Scottish election.
Naturally, such important political events are discussed in detail, but the focus is on Ruth’s role in them. The work assumes some knowledge of Scottish and UK politics, but I hope it remains accessible and readable.
Written when Ruth is only thirty-nine years old – and when she has been directly involved in politics for less than seven years – it cannot be and is not a complete account of her political career. However, I hope the final chapters offer some analysis and insight into her prospects – and those of the Scottish Conservatives.
As a political biography, this book does not aim to answer key questions over the future of the Union, the rights and wrong of independence or the UK’s relationship with Europe. Others, far more qualified than I, will undoubtedly address those in detail elsewhere.
It does, of course, aim to put the Scottish Conservatives’ 2016 result in its historical context – but it does not strive to provide a complete history of the Tories in Scotland. I would hope, however, that it provides a useful introduction for those looking to understand more about the history of the Conservatives in Scotland, as well as some refreshing ideas for those who may have studied the subject in more detail.
It should be noted that this is an unauthorised political biography. I know Ruth professionally, and I therefore only delve into personal aspects of her story where necessary. While she herself declined to cooperate, she has not attempted in any way to stop me speaking to those around her. As such, I have had access to her inner circle of advisers, former and present, Tory MSPs and their staff, as well as others who knew her well during her earlier career before politics. Many of those I have spoken to have, given the contemporary nature of the events discussed, asked to remain anonymous or not be quoted directly.
Some of those I can name and who have been particularly helpful are listed in no particular order, but I am grateful to them all.
Ruth’s directory of strategy, Eddie Barnes, gave up a considerable amount of his time and was extremely good at elucidating the inner workings of his leader’s office.
I am also grateful to Steve Bargeton, who provided some extremely useful information on Ruth’s time in the army and her leadership style.
Elsewhere, David Torrance and Chris Land proved both amiable dinner companions and fine sources of ideas and inspiration. David’s erudite works on the history of the Scottish Conservatives – a good place for those wishing to explore this subject further – have also been an invaluable source of information and background.
Gareth McPherson has been not just a good friend throughout the months of writing, but also a source of good humour and bonhomie. Fellow journalists in the Holyrood lobby – particularly Andy Picken – deserve thanks for providing first-hand accounts of events I could not witness myself.
The staff at my former newspaper, the Press and Journal, and Damian Bates, my former editor, also have my gratitude for letting me pursue this project and putting up with me while I was doing it (and always).
Lindsay Razaq in particular has been a great bastion of support and advice.
A special thanks too must go to Connor McCann, who helped me enormously in digging out archive material and preparing well-written notes on various key points in Ruth’s life.
The staff at the National Library of Scotland also deserve recognition for their patience in dealing with my obscure requests.
I am indebted to Olivia Beattie and Victoria Godden at Biteback, who had to put up with me – not always an easy task. Iain Dale, too, deserves thanks for agreeing the project.
Finally, my parents Caroline and Roger have been as supportive as ever.
And, of course, any and all mistakes are my own.
INTRODUCTION
A NIGHT TO REMEMBER
The Royal Highland Showground is an unlikely place for an unprecedented victory.
Nestled between Edinburgh Airport and one of Scotland’s busiest roads, the cavernous hall is better known for hosting car boot sales than political turning points.
Yet, at 4.20 a.m. on 6 May 2016, as Ruth Davidson took the stage, which that weekend would play host to the capital’s antiques fair, she was celebrating not just a personal but also a party triumph.
As the cameras flashed and the film rolled, all eyes were on this stocky, gay ex-soldier who had confounded her critics and defied expectation. Nails bitten to the quick, she had earlier woken to day three of a gruelling tension headache. Though her skin was tarred by a rash – she was closing in on a forty-hour shift at the end of six weeks on the campaign trail, her third in less than two years – she was brimming with delight. Not only had she defeated the SNP in her seat of Edinburgh Central – where her party had previously come fourth – she had also led the Tories back to the front line of Scottish politics.
The scale of the victory is perhaps best confirmed by Ruth herself, who, despite striding onto the stage with her trademark confidence, had prepared no victory speech. Instead, she was left to swiftly adapt her notes conceding defeat to the SNP candidate, Alison Dickie, who had been the favourite in the Edinburgh Central contest.
Always superstitious – she wears the same pair of Tory-blue pants emblazoned with the words ‘election night’ for every count – Ruth was perhaps wary of jinxing what was clearly becoming a sensational result for her party as she spoke. But, having been shunted between media interviews throughout the night, sweating under her black trouser suit, she also had a more fractured picture of how her party were performing than the close aides at her side. ‘One thing we’re learning as tonight goes on is that there are people right across the country who are sending the SNP a message,’ she told a cocktail of cheering party activists, journalists and glum rivals. ‘The voices and the decision we made as a country will not be ignored.’ Somewhat gingerly, she added: ‘If I am by any small measure elected to be the leader of the opposition party, I promise I will serve to the best of my abilities – and it is a role I will take seriously.’
Her caution is intriguing, if surprising. Throughout the campaign, polls had suggested Ruth’s Tories were on the brink of replacing Labour as the party of opposition, although none had predicted the scale of the victory. Of course, her language had been puckered with characteristic boisterousness over the previous six weeks, regularly insisting – rightly, it emerged – that her party was on course for its best ever result in a Scottish Parliament election. The 37-year-old’s entire campaign had been based around the slogan ‘Strong Opposition’ – which must make the Scottish Conservatives one of the very few major mainstream parties in history to go into an election categorically saying they did not want to win it. If she was embarrassed when a copy of her manifesto was discovered containing the emphatic statement ‘This is not a plan for government’, she need not have worried.
By the close of the night, Ruth’s party would count thirty-one MSPs – more than double the number they had started with in the morning – while Labour had collapsed, retaining just twenty-four of their thirty-eight seats. It was her party’s best performance since devolution in 1999, gaining 22 per cent or more on both the constituency and the regional list vote. By pushing Labour into third place north of the border, the Scottish Conservatives re-formed a political landscape not seen in Scotland since 1918.
By the close of the election, back home with her partner Jen, snuggled in her pyjamas, glass of rum in hand, Ruth was certainly the Leader of the Opposition – and by a large measure. It was, as Prime Minister David Cameron would tell Ruth, ‘a historic result’.
There is no doubt that Ruth is central to understanding and explaining the Tory resurgence in Scotland. Without her, it never would have happened.
However, as she alluded to in her hastily prepared victory speech, the context of Scottish post-referendum politics is also important. Despite the defeat of the Yes campaign – driven by the SNP – in 2014’s Scottish independence referendum, the question of the future of the United Kingdom remained far from answered, as demonstrated by the subsequent surge in support for Nicola Sturgeon’s Nationalists. Just days after the vote, thousands of Scots would start joining the party, leading membership to top more than 100,000 by March 2015. Ms Sturgeon herself attracted such large crowds during a speaking tour of Scotland that she was likened more to a pop star than a politician. Come the general election in May, that support would translate into a near total wipe-out of other parties in Scotland, with the SNP taking fifty-six of the fifty-nine seats available and Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Tories left with just a seat apiece north of the border.
That surge in support, coupled with Ms Sturgeon’s rhetoric, made supporters of the Union increasingly anxious about a possible rerun of the 2014 contest that had at the time been branded a ‘once in a generation’ vote. Concern among those opposed to independence only grew as the SNP talked up the possibility of a Brexit vote triggering another referendum on the future of the Union. Even now, despite the SNP losing six of their seats in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, the constitutional question remains at the forefront of politics.
With that context, Ruth made opposition to a second referendum one of her key messages ahead of the 2016 vote. There were no ifs or buts. The Tories under Ruth would not countenance even the slightest whisper of a second vote in any circumstance. In contrast to then Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale, who appeared to flip-flop on her support for the Union, Ruth had a coherent message that clearly resonated with voters. While Labour – and to a lesser extent the Liberal Democrats – went fishing for pro-independence voters they could never catch, Ruth was able to launch a strong appeal to the 55 per cent of the population who voted No in 2014.
It was a strategy with strong echoes of Lynton Crosby’s campaign for the Tories in the 2015 general election, which featured the now notorious image of former SNP leader Alex Salmond with then Labour leader Ed Miliband in his top pocket. Some commentators, notably Aidan Kerr and David Torrance, have suggested this strategy – and the resulting success for the Tories – represents the beginning of the ‘Ulsterisation’ of Scottish politics: that is, the notion that voters will pick their parties based on allegiance to, or disdain for, the Union above all else. Yet while some voters clearly made their choice based on fear of or support for a second independence referendum, such an argument largely ignores the role Ruth played in the contest.
Like Margaret Thatcher, Ruth Davidson does not look like a Tory leader.
Yet, like the Iron Lady, she understands the strengths of honing her image in synthesis with her policies.
Gone are the handbags and pearls. Aquascutum skirts have been replaced by dark trouser suits. Standing at just over five foot, Ruth’s hair is cut short over her shoulders. Her face has a remarkable ability to be both stern and cheery, often simultaneously. Her personality, too, is one of contrast. As a devout Christian but also a lesbian, she struggled for much of her early life with her sexuality. Despite being a former signaller in the Territorial Army, she is quite the opposite of military stuffiness, being famed for her great bonhomie, particularly on the campaign trail. Ruth has, for instance, been pictured riding a buffalo and driving a tank – photo calls most modern politicians would run a mile from. Her performances on such hit TV shows as Have I Got News For You have helped reinforce her reputation – particularly in Westminster – as a gregarious, ‘normal’ person. She is charming, but also notably ruthless, showing no mercy to her political opponents, most especially those in her own party. More remarkably, of course, this unconventional, adventurous young politician is a Tory, but one who appears to have a greater sense of social justice than her Etonian compatriots south of the border. But most importantly, she is Scottish – not just in nationality, but in outlook and persona.
It was this character that was centrally responsible for revitalising the Tories in Scotland by shaking off the image of the Conservatives as an English party representing English interests.
While it may be difficult for younger generations to imagine, Scotland was not always a Tory wasteland. On the contrary, in the early part of the twentieth century the land north of Hadrian’s Wall was, to a large extent, a Conservative stronghold. In 1955, the party would secure a majority of votes and seats in Scotland – a landslide that would only be surpassed in scope and scale by the SNP in 2015. Following that result, however, the party began a slow decline.
The Unionist Party, as it was known pre-1965, merged with the Conservative Party in England, becoming the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party – ceding control to London Central Office with it. While there was still an appetite for centre-right politics in Scotland, following the merger the Tories steadily lost support to parties perceived to have Scots’ interests closer at heart.
Mrs Thatcher, of course, is often – inaccurately – viewed as the bogeywoman for the decline. In fact, on her election in 1979, the Tories received their first bump in support for several decades. Indeed, before she was leader, Thatcher was actually moderately supportive of devolution, although that quickly changed once she gained the keys to Downing Street. As her reign went on, she became increasingly – and combatively – opposed to devolution in any form. That opposition, coupled with her decision to introduce the notorious poll tax a year earlier in Scotland than in England, as an ill-fated experiment, confirmed to Scots that the Tories were primarily an English-centric party.
Thatcher did not start the decline of the Tories in Scotland, but she delivered the coup de grâce. Matters failed to improve as successive Tory leaders railed against devolution, including leaders of the party in Scotland after the establishment of the Scottish Parliament in 1999. In the 1997 devolution referendum – which would eventually deliver the Holyrood chamber – the Tories backed the No campaign, supported by only a fifth of Scots. Following its establishment, Holyrood continued to be viewed as a kind of inconvenience by the Conservatives. And with Ruth’s election to the leadership in November 2011, it looked like matters were unlikely to improve.
A favourite of David Cameron’s, Ruth was thrust into the leadership after her preferred candidate, John Lamont, imploded after making what was branded a sectarian attack on Catholic schools. In truth, she was wholly unprepared for the challenge, having only been elected for the first time just three months before, but she gained strong allies with her platform of a ‘line in the sand’ against further devolution. Indeed, the chain-smoking, long-serving Tory spinner Ramsay Jones was suspended from the party for ‘inappropriately supporting’ Ruth’s candidacy after party staff had been instructed to remain neutral, while Scotland’s only Tory MP, David Mundell – an ally of Cameron’s – also backed her.
The young, inexperienced and pugnacious Ruth eventually won the bitter leadership battle against the odds, running on an uncontroversial platform that included opposition to further Scottish devolution – a conservative platform.
Had she continued with that policy – especially in the face of the 2014 independence referendum – there is no doubt her party would not have enjoyed the surge in support it now does. But, despite increasing opposition from within her own party, Ruth launched a dramatic about-turn in 2013.
The advantage of a line in the sand, of course, is that it is easily washed away.
Ahead of the party conference at Stirling in June, she outlined her plans for more powers for Scotland. It was a courageous move – a decision that very nearly cost her the leadership amid the Machiavellian intrigue and smoke-filled rooms of party politics – largely because Ruth’s early years in the leadership had been unhappy and ineffective. The SNP First Minister, Alex Salmond, regularly trounced her in Parliament, and she faced powerful rivals within her own party, who disagreed with her leadership style and tactics.
With her establishment of the Strathclyde Commission, however – named after its author, the Scottish peer Lord Strathclyde – the Tory leader regained the initiative, not just within her own party, but in Scotland.
In June 2014, the commission concluded that control over income tax and benefit spending should be devolved. Published just four months before the independence referendum, the report argued that the devolution of such powers was ‘required for a sustained relationship’ between Scotland and the rest of the UK.
In both asking for the review and embracing its proposed changes, Ruth achieved her Clause Four moment, the point when the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party finally became Scottish again.
Ruth’s rise cannot, of course, be seen without the context of the Scottish independence referendum in 2014. While she played a more minor role than, for instance, Scottish Labour figures – most notably Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown – the ballot would nevertheless be the catalyst for Ruth and the Scottish Conservatives to grow. Ideologically, it helped the Scottish Tory leader continue to redefine her party’s attitude to Scotland. She would make a deeply personal argument in favour of the UK – one built around patriotism and public service. The Union, she would declare in 2013, is ‘in our DNA’.
As with much of Ruth’s life and work, the armed forces would also play a prominent role. ‘We are a responsible nation in the world and we are not afraid to help shoulder the burden of a persecuted people,’ she would declare in the same speech, drawing on her experiences as a reporter in Kosovo. ‘And we’re only able to do so because we have the integrated armed forces we do – pulling together from every part of the UK to keep our people safe at home and to work for peace abroad.’
These appeals – which could be summed up as Britishness – were matched with the more pragmatic arguments of the Better Together campaign. Ruth was a clear advocate of the ‘broad shoulders’ theory – namely, that Scotland is better off with the support of the wider UK economy. Such arguments would be lambasted as overly negative, with the Better Together campaign gaining the unenviable nickname of Project Fear. Scots were warned of tax hikes, spending cuts and pension deficits if they voted Yes. Questions of currency and EU membership would also dominate the pro-UK campaign’s rhetoric. As the campaign moved into its final weeks, there were fears that these arguments had turned off voters who viewed them as overly negative.
Yet Ruth was a keen supporter of the message that would, in September 2014, deliver a No vote.
Politically speaking, the referendum helped galvanise the Scottish Conservatives’ ailing support base. Throughout the campaign, it would acquire the contact details of around 70,000 pro-Union supporters – a database that would prove crucial for the coming Holyrood election. It was Ruth, however, who truly flourished, growing into her leadership role throughout the referendum campaign as she gained an exposure previously unknown to leaders of Scotland’s then third party. As well as giving public speeches, she proved a passionate debater, notably succeeding in navigating a question-and-answer session with thousands of sixteen-and seventeen-year-old voters at Glasgow’s SSE Hydro. Her growth in confidence and stature was matched by an improved reception among the Scottish public, some of whom – but by no means all – were struck by her bonhomie and boisterousness.
When it came to the Holyrood election, strategists played to these strengths from the outset. From leaflets to ballot papers, the Tories emphasised not just ‘Strong Opposition’, but ‘Ruth Davidson for a Strong Opposition’. This may in part have been to assuage fears that the toxic Tory brand would damage their chances, but it was also an overt acknowledgement that Ruth – and her Scottishness – was popular with voters.
Indeed, while everyone involved will loathe the comparison, her campaign was not dissimilar to the SNP’s in its 2015 triumph. Nicola Sturgeon used the slogan ‘Stronger for Scotland’ – another clear example of how voters north of the border pick their party based on its perceived strength to stand up for the country’s interests. Before and during the 2016 campaign, Ruth also made much of her opposition to Tory austerity politics, challenging the then Chancellor, George Osborne, on his plan to scrap tax credits. And it was no accident that David Cameron – who was not just Prime Minister but effectively Ruth’s boss – was conspicuously absent from the campaign trail, not visiting Scotland once. While Scottish Labour juggled with how to handle the ideological Rubik’s cube of Jeremy Corbyn’s UK-wide leadership, Ruth was clear – in Scotland, this was her party.
She describes herself in US political terms as a Democrat – and suggested she would back any candidate over the Republican, Donald Trump.
In the aftermath of her election triumph at the Royal Highland Showground, Ruth suggested that Scotland had reached what she described as ‘peak Nat’. With Nicola Sturgeon failing to repeat the SNP’s unprecedented majority of 2011, Ruth argued the only way was down for the Nationalists.
Yet, she conspicuously ignored articulating what the result meant for her own party – and for her. Both George Osborne and David Cameron have suggested she would make a ‘fantastic’ leader of the national Tory Party. A poll on the Conservative Home website suggested that members also overwhelmingly backed this view. Ruth has persistently suggested there is ‘no chance’ of such a move – but as with the ‘line in the sand’ and her Scottish leadership bid itself, she is nothing if not flexible.
On 6 May 2016, the day after the election, a buoyant if tired Ruth told journalists the SNP, as a minority government, now had ‘no mandate’ for a second vote. ‘There has been a material change,’ she said, echoing Ms Sturgeon’s much-touted potential trigger for re-raising the constitutional question. ‘As she starts her new term of office, I hope Nicola Sturgeon makes it clear that she will now focus entirely on what she was elected to do – lead a devolved administration.’
Such hopes would prove premature. The question of independence would continue to dominate.
With the coming of the EU referendum, Ruth would be once again thrust into the limelight, this time in a bid to dodge Brexit and save her chief ally, Cameron. In many ways, the EU referendum – and Ruth’s role in it – cemented her position as a national political figure. She had already received some prominence in the 2014 independence vote, and her quirky campaign photo calls in the 2015 general election had kept her on the radar of much of the press lobby outside Scotland. Her triumph at Holyrood had established her as a politician of the future – one to watch, as it were – but the EU referendum was the first time she entered the consciousness of the general public south of the border. Ruth, unlike many in her own party, is a passionate pro-European, for much the same reasons she is a supporter of the UK. Her performance in the national debate at Wembley – where she took on Boris Johnson and Andrea Leadsom – was widely praised and must be one of the most remembered parts of an otherwise often dreary Remain campaign. Her ferocious attacks on members of her own party ignited the campaign in its final stages, with many of her predictions of there being no Brexit plan proving prophetic.
Fiery though it was, it was not, of course, enough to halt a Leave vote. Just weeks after her triumph at Holyrood, Ruth was facing political oblivion following the EU referendum. Her allies in Westminster had resigned. Her party was in chaos. Ruth’s relationship with Cameron – which had been so crucial to her rise, but was also a genuine friendship – was now politically worthless. No. 10 was vacant. The Scottish Tory leader – who is no fan of Boris Johnson – would have to carefully navigate the intrigues of a Conservative leadership election for the first time.
With May’s victory, she would have to fight to preserve her access in Westminster. While insiders insist her relationship with the new Prime Minister is close, there is no doubt it is less warm than her friendship with Cameron and Osborne. Ruth is uncomfortable with much of the more hard-line post-Brexit rhetoric flooding out of Westminster. Indeed, she would feel strongly enough about the proposal to get firms to list foreign workers to publicly distance herself from it in her conference speech introducing May.
Most importantly, the threat of independence – which she had so played up in the Holyrood election – was now back on the table, thanks to her own party.
Of course, it helps Ruth’s often expedient political rhetoric on the Union for the spectre of independence to linger. In many ways, the Brexit vote has given Ruth’s Holyrood campaign more resonance, even though the resurgence of separatism is a self-inflicted wound. A second ballot remains, in the First Minister’s words, ‘highly likely’. A generally peripheral player in the first referendum campaign, occasionally moving into the limelight, Ruth would undoubtedly now play a much more central role in opposing any future referendum.
Nicola Sturgeon, of course, stayed true to her word and, relatively promptly, began preparations for a second ballot on independence. This was the situation Ruth and the Tories most feared and yet also had directly contributed to. After a brief flirtation with blocking a second referendum, what was hoped would be a more long-term solution was reached – a snap general election. Of course, Theresa May pitched the 2017 general election to the country as a chance to endorse her vision of Brexit. Riding high in the polls and facing an apparently terminally ill Labour Party, May took a political gamble. But a secondary objective was to force the SNP into an election it was unprepared for and – largely because of its enormous success in 2015 – unlikely to succeed in. Sturgeon had won so many seats in 2015, it would be unlikely she would hold them all again.
The backdrop to the 2017 general election in Scotland was undoubtedly the question of independence and, once again, it played a key part in Ruth’s electoral strategy. While the Holyrood victory of 2016 was more unexpected, it would be this campaign that would entrench Ruth as a national political figure and a genuine force within the Conservative Party, if not national politics as well. In that snap contest, the Tories under Ruth garnered an impressive thirteen seats, an increase of twelve from their showing just two years earlier. More significantly, the increase in the number of Scottish Conservative seats allowed Theresa May – who lost her majority in a reversal of fortunes unthinkable at the start of the campaign – to stay in government with the help of the DUP.
As a result, Ruth now wields considerable political power not just in Scotland but nationally. Amid the confusion of Brexit negotiations, she and her Scottish Conservative MPs are a serious force that command significant influence in No. 10 and in Parliament. They could, if Ruth so wished, even bring down the government.
There is no doubt that Ruth has lived through – and in some ways helped form – politically turbulent times.
She has, by returning the Tories to the front line of Scottish politics, achieved what no one thought possible. She did this by making the Tories the opposition for Scotland, not against Scotland – a situation that had not existed for almost fifty years.
Ruth’s star has risen stratospherically and many are – rightly – considering her wider political future.
Yet she also played up the threat of the SNP and kept constitutional politics at the fore. Such political expediency could not only cost her party dearly, but her much-loved country too.
As her political career unfolds, there are many challenges ahead. But she is nothing if not determined.
CHAPTER 1
THE LONG DECLINE
When Ruth was born in Edinburgh, on 10 November 1978, the Conservatives were in the midst of a great decline in Scotland. Yet they were not always political pariahs in the north – in fact, for much of the twentieth century they were the natural party of government. The ‘toxic Tories’ won the largest number of seats north of the border in 1918, 1924, 1931 and 1935. In 1955, they would win more than 50 per cent of the vote across Scotland – a feat only matched by the SNP in the 2015 general election.
The key to this success was a unique sense of Scottish identity, a policy not of devolution but certainly of decentralising. Tories favoured the Union, of course, but it was not an overtly political issue for the party for much of the twentieth century. Above all, they were a pragmatic party, with a separate political establishment, outwith Westminster control, which was able to tailor its views to a Scottish audience.
They were, of course, not even known as the Conservative Party in Scotland until 1965. Before then, from the beginning of the twentieth century, they were simply the Unionist Party, with a separate leadership and administration to the Tories in England, albeit taking the Conservative whip in Westminster. The Unionist Party in Scotland emerged from the split in the Liberal Party resulting from Irish Home Rule in 1886. The Liberal Unionists, as they became known, formed an electoral pact with the Conservative Party, which would greatly improve Tory fortunes north of the border. The two parties remained officially separate until they merged in 1912, into the Conservative and Unionist Party in England and Wales – and the Unionist Party in Scotland.
The influence of the Liberals – the former dominant political force in Scotland – helped give the Unionist Party a decidedly Scottish outlook throughout much of the early twentieth century. The attitude of the party was not nationalist, but rather patriotic – with an emphasis on a love of Scotland, Britain and Empire. Unionists therefore enjoyed a cross-section of support – not just from landed aristocracy, but also from working-class, particularly Protestant, communities. What would become ‘Red’ Clydeside, for instance, voted for the Unionist Party throughout much of the 1920s and 1930s. Times may have changed, but Ruth has embraced much of this rhetoric that the Tories in Scotland would lose over the ensuing decades.
The unique Unionist Party attitude is perhaps best emphasised by their MP Robert – better known as Bob – Boothby. Representing Aberdeenshire, Bob Boothby was fiercely upper-class in both his background and his prejudices. The son of an Edinburgh stockbroker, he was educated at Eton and graduated from Oxford, himself working in financial services before moving into politics. Dressed in well-cut three-piece suits, he enjoyed a reputation as a high-society bon vivant. Yet he also epitomised the appeal of the Unionist Party in Scotland that would be lost in later years. In his first election in victory in 1924, a baby-faced but handsome Boothby ran under the slogan ‘A friend for all’. His service as Parliamentary Private Secretary to the ardently imperial Winston Churchill emphasises his fondness for the empire. Boothby would join with the future Prime Minister in vehemently opposing disarmament and Adolf Hitler. But he was also a patriotic Scot – and emphasised Scottish interests to his mentor.
In one letter, written after Churchill’s accession to power in 1940, the Aberdeenshire MP lambasts the Prime Minister over the lack of Scottish representation in the new government at Westminster. ‘I cannot conceal from you the deep distress I feel at the series of “sabotaging” political appointments that have been made,’ he wrote to the Prime Minister in May.
I met my Unionist colleagues in Scotland at the Carlton Club this evening, and their indignation at the appointment of an Englishman as Secretary of State [for Scotland] – for the first, and it is to be hoped the last, time in history – knows no bounds. They take the view, unanimously, that it is nothing short of a public insult to Scotland at the most critical moment in her proud history.
Such records reflect the attitude of Unionist politics more generally – patriotic, to both Scotland and Britain.
These views, however, did not stray into support for devolution, even in those early days. Boothby was scathing about a trial meeting of the ‘Scottish National Parliament’ – not SNP for short – branding it a ‘dismal fiasco’ that he met with ‘horrified dismay’. These views would be the dominant discourse among the Scottish centre-right in the pre-1950s period. The emerging Labour Party, meanwhile, tended to favour nationwide initiatives delivered from central government. The great achievements of the 1945 Clement Attlee administration, for instance – the NHS, the welfare state – were all delivered with a broad brush from Whitehall.
Indeed, as the historian Richard J. Finlay suggests, the separation of parties in Scotland and England allowed the Unionist party to forge a ‘middle way’ that appealed to a cross-section of Scottish society. The party were happy to bolster the free market, but the emergence of a fully fledged welfare state also allowed them to tailor a unique message to Scots voters. That the Unionist party vote in Scotland was higher than that in England in the 1940s and early 1950s emphasises the success of this approach – but it was the electoral triumph in 1955 typified it. Winning more than 50 per cent for the first – and, so far, only – time in Scotland helped return a Tory government to Westminster. The Tory Party election handbook that year quoted future leader Harold Macmillan as saying the UK Union must be ‘the wedding ring (and) not the handcuff’. (The SNP at this point, according to the historian Tom Devine, were an ‘irrelevant and eccentric sect rather than a mainstream political party’.)
This, however, would turn out to be the high point of the Unionist Party. While support initially remained strong despite government debacles – most notably the Suez Crisis – it would begin a slow decline, as the loss of empire coupled with a sapping of sectarian tensions drew support away from the Tories in Scotland. From the 1955 high point, Tory vote share in Scotland would fall to 47 per cent in the 1959 general election. While this narrowly beat Labour’s 46 per cent, handing the Tories the largest share of the popular vote, it would translate to a total of only thirty-one of the seventy-one seats north of the border, seeing the Unionists beaten into second place by Labour. Tory leader Harold Macmillan would, of course, be returned to office in a remarkable turnaround. In the aftermath of Suez, Labour had enjoyed a thirteen-point lead over the Conservatives, but that evaporated as voters seemingly lacked confidence in Labour’s tax-and-spend plans.
Yet while 1959 was not a disaster for the Tories, the vote-share data clearly reflects a definite and continuing decline in support for the government in Scotland. By 1964, the party would poll 41 per cent of the vote. By most measures, it was a decent showing, but it still represented a decline of almost 10 per cent in as many years. It would also lead to a significant drop in seats – seven in total – leaving the Unionists with just twenty-four MPs in Scotland, well behind Labour’s forty-three. This result was all the more remarkable given Alec Douglas-Home, a Scot, was now the Conservative candidate for Prime Minister.
It was not until the Unionist Party merged with the Conservative Party in England in 1965, however, that the decline would really gather pace. The brainchild of Edward Heath, who had taken over the party leadership from Douglas-Home, the rebranding would lead to the growing perception in Scotland that the Tories – as they now were – no longer had Scottish interests at heart. Party management and control were now ceded entirely to Westminster – a takeover that commentator Colin Sutherland believes would ultimately bear responsibility for the Tories’ failure to recover their 1955 levels of support.
Of course, the Tories – and Heath in particular – were strong on Scottish rhetoric, if not policy, beyond the merger. Heath, elected Prime Minister in 1970, was from the moderate branch of the Conservative Party. Indeed, Thatcher would later brand him a ‘wet’ for his reluctance to go along with her liberalising economic agenda. One of his chief aims on ascending to No. 10 was to try to boost economic growth in regional areas. Scotland, understandably, featured heavily in this.
In the snap 1966 election – Heath’s first as leader – the Tory vote share in Scotland would fall to a new low of 38 per cent as they failed to win a UK majority. To put that figure in context, the Tory vote share in the rest of the UK was 43 per cent, down just one point from 1964. It was now increasingly clear – even to the most stubborn – that the Tories had a growing problem in Scotland, and Heath was increasingly anxious to be perceived as being on the right side of the Scots.
The Declaration of Perth, delivered in 1968 when Heath was Leader of the Opposition, promised the first devolved Scottish assembly. While the assembly was set to be limited in power and scope – particularly compared to the post-1997 devolution settlement – Mr Heath’s statement echoed the historic attitudes of Tories in Scotland. ‘Let there be no doubt about this: the Conservative Party is determined to effect a real improvement in the machinery of government in Scotland,’ he told his startled party conference in Perth in 1968. ‘It is pledged to give the people of Scotland genuine participation in the making of decisions that affect them – all within the historic unity of the United Kingdom.’ Of course, much of this statement may have been born of pragmatism rather than ideology.
Falling support for his party in Scotland, coupled with the rise of nationalist sentiment, forced Heath to act. One survey at the time suggested Labour and the SNP were both polling at 30 per cent in Scotland – the same level as the Tories – while a year earlier the SNP’s Winnie Ewing had won a surprise victory in the Hamilton by-election. As David Torrance points out, it was in the face of SNP extremism that Heath’s shadow Cabinet – including future Scottish Secretary George Younger – approved the speech promising devolution. Heath himself would later write: ‘In the light of the evident shift in opinion since that election [1966], it would have been politically suicidal to stick to our guns.’
Yet that does not detract from the fact that Heath was merely echoing long-held sentiments among Tories north of the border – that decentralising control to Scotland was a good thing. While Conservative members and MPs were split on the proposals, they were the logical extension of Scottish Tory attitudes that had gained the party such electoral success in the early part of the century.
The now famous Declaration of Perth did help arrest the decline of the Tories in Scotland somewhat. In the 1970 general election, they would poll 38 per cent – the same share they received four years earlier. That, however, must be viewed in contrast to the Tory vote share in the rest of the UK, which rose by almost 5 per cent on 1966 and helped return Edward Heath as Prime Minister. In Scotland, while they gained three additional seats on 1966, they were still significantly behind Labour, who controlled forty-four of Scotland’s seats, compared to the Tories’ twenty-three.
Now in office and with the firing gun very much started with the Declaration of Perth, Heath, a Conservative leader, had begun the long and slow process that would lead to the creation of the Scottish Parliament some thirty years later. Alec Douglas-Home – the Scottish Tory MP and former Prime Minister – was tasked with formalising Heath’s proposals. His report, entitled ‘Scotland’s Government’, recommended the formation of a 120-strong Scottish Assembly to oversee laws affecting Scots. Heath’s initial enthusiasm, however, soon waned as bigger decisions got in the way – most notably the decision to enter the European Community in 1973, which, coincidentally, helped erode the importance of the UK single market to Scotland. Douglas-Home’s recommendations would gather dust until, in 1975, Heath was ousted by Margaret Thatcher.
Meanwhile, the Tories would continue to suffer from a lack of progress in Scotland as devolution stalled. The two elections of 1974 provide further evidence of the declining support for the party in Scotland. In February, their share dropped to 33 per cent, down 5 per cent from 1970, as Edward Heath lost control of No. 10. By the second election of 1974, in October, the Tory vote share in Scotland would fall to just 25 per cent. With the Conservatives out of office, Thatcher would secure the leadership of the party.
If Heath was inactive on devolution, the Iron Lady would be positively opposed.
Contrary to popular belief, Thatcher did not kill the Tories in Scotland. As we have seen, that decline began some years before, with the loss of a Scottish identity following the merger of the Unionist Party with the English Conservatives, as well as a faltering electoral base. On her first visit, a crowd of 3,000 came to see Thatcher tour the St James shopping centre in Edinburgh, with three people fainting from excitement.
Indeed, the Conservatives actually picked up support in Scotland in the 1979 election – the first Thatcher fought – gaining 31 per cent of the vote, an increase of 6 per cent on five years earlier. That vote came in the wake of a Labour-initiated referendum on a devolved Scottish chamber. While a narrow majority voted for the legislation, this amounted to less than 40 per cent of the Scottish electorate voting in favour, rendering the result invalid.
While Thatcher herself opposed the proposed devolution, Douglas-Home told Scottish voters to reject it in favour of a better deal from the next Tory administration. Not only was a better deal not forthcoming, but Thatcher, who had already been sceptical, became increasingly opposed to any form of devolution.
She was not alone in her party in holding such views. As her archive notes: ‘Many in the parliamentary party were privately lukewarm, dubious or downright hostile. They feared devolution might damage or lead to the break-up [of] the United Kingdom, [and] foresaw a backlash against the policy in England.’ Before she even took office, Thatcher was said to like the idea of the UK as a whole having a say in any devolution settlement – a view that was hardly palatable in Scotland.
The direction of travel was not wholly welcome. Heath, who claimed to have ‘seen more of Scotland over the past seventeen years than any other national political figure’, came to regret his lack of action on devolution and the Douglas-Home recommendations. The former Prime Minister, now in the political wilderness, became increasingly agitated by the reluctance of his fellow Conservatives to support new powers for Scotland. In 1976, for instance, Heath would abstain on a three-line-whip for the first time in his life as Thatcher attempted to block Labour’s referendum on devolution.
Thatcher’s continued opposition to devolution would see Tory support begin to decline again as a consequence. However, she was not always so opposed to ceding power to Scotland, declaring on a 1975 visit to Edinburgh that a Scottish Assembly should be a ‘top priority’. Such views shifted as she came closer to political office herself. By 1988 she would declare: ‘As long as I am leader of this party, we shall defend the Union and reject legislative devolution unequivocally.’
This opposition would further accelerate as a ‘democratic deficit’ emerged, with the Iron Lady’s government in Westminster looking increasingly unlike the MPs Scots were voting for. In the 1983 and 1987 elections, around 20 per cent fewer Scots would vote Tory than their – increasingly separate – compatriots in England. This divergence of opinion saw Scots increasingly backing parties they believed held their interests closer to heart – Labour and the SNP – than the prim, pearled Thatcher.
If Bob Boothby epitomised the Unionist Party of yesteryear, then Sir Nicholas Fairbairn emphasised the Thatcherite Scottish Conservatives. Elected an MP in Perthshire in 1974 with the tiniest majority against the SNP, Fairbairn was noted for his flamboyant dress and eccentric personality. Yet he was also noted for his right-wing views – and his opposition to devolution. As the Herald would note in 1987:
[Fairbairn] warned of vastly increased taxation for everyone in Scotland if devolution went ahead, highlighted the higher government spending per head in Scotland compared with the rest of the United Kingdom under the present system, and claimed Scotland had a standard of living which those south of the border would not enjoy.
Notably, after his death in 1995, the SNP would win Fairbairn’s seat, which was once one of the Tories’ safest in Scotland.
Thatcher’s coup de grâce, however, came with the poll tax debacle, which saw the Tory Prime Minister introduce the community charge a year earlier in Scotland than in the rest of the UK. The decision has led to significant debate to this day over whether Scotland was used as a ‘guinea pig’ to test the tax before it was promoted in England and Wales. Then Chancellor Nigel Lawson has vehemently denied such accusations. ‘I can understand why the fact that the poll tax was introduced first in Scotland may have led some to suppose the Cabinet in London was deliberately using Scotland as a test-bed for the tax,’ he once said, directly addressing the criticism. ‘But nothing could be further from the truth.’
Despite his denials, however, Cabinet Office documents released in 2014 tell a different story. In November 1985, Thatcher adviser Oliver Letwin stated: ‘You could make all the changes to grants, non-domestic rates, capital controls and housing benefit in England and Wales, but try out the residential charge in a pure form only in Scotland, and leave domestic rates intact for the time being in the rest of the country.’ He added: ‘If you [Thatcher] are not willing to move to a pure residence charge in England and Wales immediately, you should introduce a mixture of taxes but should rather use the Scots as a trailblazer for the real thing.’
In fairness to Lawson, while Letwin did advocate testing the poll tax on Scotland, documents from the same period show he was vociferously opposed. Lawson stated in one memo: ‘A flat-rate poll tax would be politically unsustainable; even with a rebate scheme the package would have “an unacceptable impact” on certain types of household.’
The Letwins of the government won the day, however – and the poll tax would be introduced in Scotland in 1989, a year earlier than in the rest of the UK. Thatcher was characteristically unrepentant, of course, taking to the stage at her 1990 party conference in Aberdeen to chastise the Labour Party for stoking up opposition to paying the community charge in Scotland.
The then Scottish Secretary, Malcolm Rifkind, would complain about Thatcher’s treatment of Scotland, although he himself supported the poll tax. ‘She just assumed it was my job to represent the Cabinet in Scotland,’ he said. ‘I saw it as the other way round. The problem Margaret had was that she was an English woman and a bossy English woman.’
Indeed, it was the Iron Lady’s refusal to back down in the face of such opposition in Scotland that irrevocably damaged the Tories’ position north of the border. David Cameron would admit this himself shortly after he became Tory leader in 2006. ‘A series of blunders were committed in the 1980s and 1990s of which the imposition of the poll tax was the most egregious,’ he said. ‘The decision to treat Scotland as a laboratory for experimentation in new methods of local government finance was clumsy and unjust.’
Of course, Scots did benefit from a number of Thatcher’s policies, particularly right-to-buy – a position she obliquely sought to justify in her famous ‘Sermon on the Mound’ speech to the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland. However, that famous speech also angered many Scots, who saw it as an attempt to justify her more controversial policies. ‘We are all responsible for our own actions,’ she famously declared. ‘We can’t blame society if we disobey the law. We simply can’t delegate the exercise of mercy and generosity to others.’
The damage had been done.
As an opinion piece in The Herald would later note:
In between [her] 1975 debut in Edinburgh and her tearful departure from Downing Street, Mrs Thatcher became a hate figure for many in Scotland.
She bore the brunt of the blame for the poll tax, introduced in Scotland a year earlier than in England, and was vilified for presiding over an industrial shakeout that shed workers in their thousands from mines, steel plants and other traditional industries.
But her supporters argued she was giving the economy the unpalatable medicine it needed, and also point to victory despite the odds in the Falklands.
Through it all, Mrs Thatcher gave the impression of being baffled at Scottish opposition to her policies.
Indeed, as a marker of how divisive Thatcher’s legacy is in Scotland, one of Alex Salmond’s final acts as First Minister in 2014 was to write off unpaid debts from the poll tax.
‘The poll tax was a hated levy which poured untold misery on communities across Scotland,’ he said in October 2014. ‘It was a hugely discredited tax, even before it was brought in – and it was rightly consigned to history just four years after its introduction in Scotland. It is therefore not appropriate for councils to use current electoral records to chase arrears from decades ago.’
By 1992, even with Thatcher gone, the Tories would poll just over 25 per cent of the vote north of the border. Five years later, they would receive just 18 per cent of the vote in Scotland and return no Scottish MPs amid Tony Blair’s landslide victory. As Margaret Arnott and Catriona Macdonald note in Whatever Happened to Tory Scotland?, Thatcher had seriously damaged the Scottish Conservative brand of Unionism by turning it from a patriotic idea into a political one.
‘[Under Thatcher], the Union would be defended on ideological grounds to maintain central control throughout the UK,’ they write. ‘Here it was parliamentary sovereignty rather than popular sovereignty that was the defining practice. A different kind of Unionism was advocated by Thatcherites. Thatcherites were comfortable framing the Union to achieve ideological ends. Ideological ends which drew upon the ideas of the New Right.’
In the same book, Colin Kidd explains it more plainly, stating: ‘Above all, there was the Thatcher factor, which took two forms, both a visceral dislike of Margaret Thatcher as a shrill, bossy Englishwoman, and a more substantive hostility to Thatcherism as an ideology markedly out of step with the traditional ethos of Scottish life.’
On the announcement of her death, parties were held in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland – though such celebrations were widely condemned both north and south of the border.
Thatcher’s failure to deliver devolution – and her perceived Englishness – dealt damaging body blows to Toryism in Scotland.
The best evidence for this comes from Ruth Davidson herself, who has sought to distance her party from the Thatcher years. The Scottish Conservative leader has done her utmost to erase the legacy of the 1980s from the current political narrative.
Of course, she has also praised the Iron Lady for many of her policies. Speaking after Mrs Thatcher passed away in 2013, Ruth described her as ‘one of the truly great Prime Ministers’, adding, ‘She defended Britain’s sovereignty, helped win the Cold War, empowered thousands to own their own home by democratising property ownership and smashed the glass ceiling.’
Indeed, Ruth has also regularly praised Thatcher from a feminist perspective.
Coming home from school on the day the Iron Lady resigned in 1990, Ruth asked a friend’s mother, ‘Can a man even be Prime Minister?’
