Skip to main content
Advertise with the Morning Star
So long then, Ruth Davidson
The leader of the Scottish Conservatives welcomed Boris Johnson's coronation with her resignation – perhaps they were just too similar, muses CONRAD LANDIN

“I WILL force myself to do things I’m scared of just to show myself I’m being stupid for being scared,” Ruth Davidson said at the Edinburgh International Book Festival earlier this month. Was this why she initially persisted as Scottish Tory chief under Boris Johnson’s leadership, or why she ultimately gave up?

Davidson’s rise to political prominence was rapid. She joined the Scottish Conservatives in 2009 on the day she handed in her notice at the BBC to pursue further study at the University of Glasgow. Within two years she had become the party’s leader.

Announcing her resignation eight years later, Davidson insisted it was motivated by personal circumstances, and not by Johnson’s ascendancy. It’s no surprise that having recently started a family, Davidson’s tolerance for the gruelling and discriminatory rigours of politics may have waned.

The 95th Anniversary Appeal
Support the Morning Star
You have reached the free limit.
Subscribe to continue reading.
Similar stories
Cameron Norrie celebrates his victory in his Gentlemen's Singles match against Nicolas Jarry on day seven of the 2025 Wimbledon Championships at the All England Lawn Tennis and Croquet Club, London, July 6, 2025
Men’s tennis / 7 July 2025
7 July 2025
Jeremy Corbyn MP joins demonstrators outside the Royal Courts of Justice, central London, May 13, 2025
Opinion / 5 July 2025
5 July 2025

While Reform poses as a workers’ party, a credible left alternative rooted in working-class communities would expose their sham — and Corbyn’s stature will be crucial to its appeal, argues CHELLEY RYAN

NEW FOR OLD? Labour leader Tony Blair (second right), with (
Features / 27 November 2024
27 November 2024
The fawning tributes from the Establishment have painted Prescott as a fighter for Old Labour leftism and treated his background and accent as unique eccentricities — two utterly bogus postulations, writes STEVE PARRY
AHEAD OF THEIR TIME: Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, deput
Books / 22 November 2024
22 November 2024
JOHN GREEN is disappointed by a marred critique of the British establishment by someone who was part of it