Ruth Davidson MSP tells ToryHoose why she is standing as leader!
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On Friday we launched our first article from the leadership campaign. Today we give you the second article from the leadership contest, Ruth Davidson, Regional MSP for Glasgow.
The contest for the leadership of the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party is about more than deciding who will lead our party – it is about deciding where our party is going.
I am standing because I have a vision for the Scottish Conservatives as a modern, inclusive, and energised force in Scottish politics.
A party is not about structures and nameplates and clauses in a constitution. A party is built on shared values and common purpose.
The Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party is an institution that grows from an ideal. The belief that every man and woman in Scotland, whatever their background, should be able to achieve their ambitions if they work hard enough.
We are the party of aspiration, opportunity, and achievement.
We believe that endeavour should be encouraged and success rewarded, and that no one should be excluded from either.
Somewhere along the way, we have lost sight of this ideal and allowed ourselves to be distracted from our purpose.
When purpose falters, it is easy to retreat into process.
The proposal to do away with the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party and found in its place an alternative party is a retreat into process.
The voters of Scotland share our values of family, enterprise, and personal freedom but they suspect that, when it comes down to it, we prefer to talk to ourselves than talk about what matters to them.
I am standing to lead a party that looks forward, not inward.
Let’s be blunt: the average voter couldn’t care less what we call ourselves or what our constitutional arrangements are. These are obsessions for politicians and political anoraks.
The voters are more concerned with the economy, better schools for their children, a flexible and reliable NHS, and making their communities safe places to raise families.
They want to vote for a party that represents their ambitions and interests.
I want to make us that party once again.
I want to turn the Scottish Conservatives into the natural party of aspirational Scotland. A modern party for modern Scotland – open, inclusive, and forward-looking. I want to reach out to people from communities and backgrounds and ways of life all across our country who have never voted Conservative before. I want to engage with them. I want to show them that our values are their values. That we stand for the same things. That it’s time we stood up for these values together.
We don’t need a new party, we need a new kind of leader. Someone who is proud to be Scottish, Conservative, and Unionist and who can make people across Scotland feel the same way. Someone who can reinvigorate our party operation and make our principles relevant to modern, 21st century Scotland. Someone who can go from church fete to TV studio, from a business lunch to a charity launch, who can sit down with working mums and graduates and first-generation Scots – and champion our message of aspiration.
We will continue to lose if no one understands why we want to win. I want to show voters that our purpose is to create a confident and prosperous Scotland in a strong and proud United Kingdom.
I will be a leader who takes us forward to the forefront of Scottish politics.
I will be a leader who makes the next ten years the decade when the Scottish Conservatives start winning again.
I will be a leader who wins for our party and for our country.
Ms Davidson’s inexperience shows in every paragraph.I started to go through the statement but found it bland and disappointing with nothing new added to the field of poliical debate
“as a modern, inclusive, ….- What does that mean exactly? Modern is a word used by politicos taken straight out of a ccommercial advertisers handbook while inclusive in political terms is a Blairite term.
“A party is built on shared values and common purpose.” Quite but I also know that the Pope is a Catholic.
Paragraphs 4, 5,6 and 7 could be said with equal conviction by the other two candidates but also the contenders for the Scottish Labour Party could say it in their election campaign
“The proposal to do away with the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party and found in its place an alternative party is a retreat into process.” What is a retreat into process? (in English please)
I could go further paragraph by paragraph but to quote Ernie Bevin, all this is “clitch after clitch after clitch ..”
sandy i find your comment very irrelevant or should i say old politics, it remines me of barack obama campaign where people where saying his rheotric are not his there for do not elect him as president . iam very aware that u have an issue with ruth davidson and the way she became an msp but i can give u a debate on that .apart from that there is nothing u have said which is relevant to the debate on leadership.
I think Mr Jamieson is being a bit unfair in his comments here. Surely Ruth Davidson is right in saying that changing a name does nothing for and means nothing to voters, especially when Murdo Fraser maintains that if elected leader of a ‘new’ party he will continue to support the Conservative Party in Westminster?
Voters are not that stupid; they will not vote for the same old people, who have been in the Scottish Parliament for years and who have yet to show any dynamism or real initiative, just because they have changed the name of their party!
Surely voters will vote for someone with a good sense of direction who promotes what they believe in (instead of hiding it under a new wrapper) and who states this clearly and with passion?
I take the view that politics is about policies and have over some forty years in te Party have seen what I believe are meaningless platitudes spoken by candidates for every office and it does worry me that at times this works and we regret our choices later.
It is rational to ask ones would one candidate make any of these bland statements in a negative context so that no sane candidate for any office would say that endeavour should be discouraged nor would they call for worse schools or NHS. That is why I am critical of this type of claim. If the null-hypothesis holds, then the initial statement is meaningless.
That being the case to put the meat into policies it is fair to expect candidiates to present answers to questions on actual policy issues an to be fair none of the three candidates seem to have followed this path too much
For myself In would think of ten questions that might influence my vote. Thse would be
I think its fair to ask any candidate for leadership their actual ideas on Policies significant questions would include
1 Does the Candidate support or oppose increasing the power of the Parliament particularly in regard to taxation?
2) Does the candidate support the idea of opting out of the Common Fisheries Policy either jointly with England or on our own?
3) In a wider sphere does the candidate support Britain’s Membership of the EU?
4) In terms of Law and Order would the candidate support the introduction of Capital Punishment?
5) In schools would the candidate support the re-introduction of senior and junior Secondary Schools in Urban Scotland?
6) In a narrow education policy would the candidate support the re-introduction of Section 2A aka Section 28 as expressed by the Scots people in 2000?
7) Taking cognisance of the fact of a gradual breakdown of discipline in schools, can the belt be brought back?
9) In the absence of any inward investment, what do candidates believe can be done to encourage the development and growth of new and existing small business?
10) Within that strategy what ideas are there to ensure such new development is in manufacturing?