Davidson expect

by James Kelly

ACCORDING to recent reports from her adoring fans in the media, Ruth Davidson “genuinely” believes that she will be the next First Minister. It’s the “genuinely” that’s startling, because even Michael Foot and William Hague went through the motions of telling us they were going to win, when they must have privately known they didn’t have a hope in hell. On the face of it, Davidson’s chances are no better - even assuming she can reverse the current catastrophic loss of Tory support to the Brexit Party, which is by no means certain.

A couple of possibilities we can totally rule out are Davidson grabbing the top job by virtue of winning an overall majority at Holyrood, as the SNP managed in 2011, or by getting as close to a majority as the SNP did in 2016, thus making a Tory-led government the only viable outcome. There is enough of a ceiling on potential Tory support to leave that scale of breakthrough firmly in the realms of fantasy. It should be remembered that Davidson’s strategy over recent years has been geared towards maximising her support beneath the natural ceiling - wrapping herself in the Union Jack and channelling Ian Paisley may repel the majority of voters who wouldn’t generally consider voting Tory, but that hasn’t been a problem because it seems to excite the 25%+ of the electorate who are prepared to give her a hearing. And, after all, she always said that her aim was simply to become the strongest possible opposition to the SNP government. She even declined to stand against Nicola Sturgeon and Willie Rennie for nomination as First Minister in 2016, implying that she’d be breaking a campaign pledge if she actually took office!