YouSaid · the spoken record

Ruth Davidson

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31

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2017-10-06

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2017-10-06

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1

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1. “I think first of all in Boris's defence he's run London but you're right I have been an opposition politician and I think that one of the differences that you've seen and this is maybe part of the speech that I was trying to make at conference is that there is a difference between governing and campaigning and when people were looking at the campaign for the general election and we're talking about say for example Theresa May's performance within that, actually you'll even get to the point where you get to have a campaign if you've governed well and that's why I think the party needs to settle down and get behind the Prime Minister who's the best person to govern.”

   2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “But the fight to keep Scotland in the country is a fight for the country, Nick. And that's one that I've been fighting for a number of years. And I think that I'll only feel like we finished that fight or that it's ready to be handed over to the next generation after me is if we see off a nationalist government in Scotland. Because for as long as there's a nationalist government in Scotland, for long with the Greens, there's a nationalist majority in Hollyrood, this threat hasn't gone away. And it's a threat that I want to see off because I said that I would.”

   2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “I say that my duty is here, and the reason that I say that is yes, because personal ambition, of course, you would like to be the first minister of Scotland, but also because we had a really hard-won victory in 2014, but our country was in peril. Scotland was hanging in the balance of leaving the United Kingdom. And I'm Scottish and British, and I don't want anyone to tell me I can't be one or the other.”

   2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “You know the Prime Minister better than the characterisation you've just made of her. That's less than I would have expected of you. Yes, the Prime Minister is shy, which is why I think so many people within the party were willing her on during her speech a couple of days ago. Because you imagine for somebody who has to, in many ways, show courage even to get on the stage to have so many things wrong around her. It's everybody's worst nightmare, but even more so for somebody who is a dignified, quiet woman. Theresa May is a good woman. She's diligent. She works hard. She cares. She's not a showman. And she says it herself. She doesn't wear her heart nor sleeve. But she's a woman of real substance. And if you get her in her quiet times, she can have a wicked sense of humor.”

   2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “I guess it's one of those things you have to kind of see it coming to know what you're talking about. So, okay, so a recent example, the association and doing a deal with the DUP, I was very strong I didn't want it to be a form of coalition. I told the Prime Minister that. And I said that I was very uncomfortable with it and that I wanted us to ensure that there would be absolutely no rollback of very hard-won LGBT rights in this country and that we would make sure that we used every influence that we had to try and advance them in Northern Ireland. And I think that if I hadn't had that assurance of Theresa May, and this isn't our style, but if she'd say it, look, it's more important, if it means X, Y or Z, then that is something that I would have taken a standover. And if it had required my resignation, then I would have done it.”

   2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “I think that makes it sound as if I do it on a whim and that is not true and I wouldn't accept that. Do you know I did my book report at high school? I did my degrees in English and stuff and so I did a lot of English at school to go and do that and I did it on a play called A Man for All Seasons and there's a line in there which is talking about Thomas Muir not being able to bend and I'm not in any way suggesting that I'm a Thomas Moore but it's about this idea that there's a small part of yourself smaller than a tennis court that is your conscience and that you shouldn't ever compromise that and there is a point at which yes you have to make compromises day in daily in politics but sometimes you hit up again something that just will not bend and if you do allow it to bend you think less of yourself as a person and there is a point sometimes past which you will not go.”

   2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Incorporating the Leslie and Mark into news in a hugely influential paper it was. I'd worked at local and regional radio stations before I got to the BBC, but none of them had a policy of supporting the reserve forces. And because of work that I'd done overseas with local regiments, I'd been out to Germany for workup, I'd been out to Kosovo for a short period to see what Scottish troops were doing abroad. And I'd seen reserve soldiers command full-time soldiers in a theatre in Kosovo and thought, you know, this is something that I think I can do. And so when I joined the BBC, the War March came about a month after and a couple of months after that I joined the territorial army. And I would have served if asked because I believe in the military chain of command. It is about principle.”

   2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “Well, because at the time I didn't believe that Tony Blair is saying that some previous resolution at the United Nations then meant he had carte blanche when he knew he couldn't get another one to say that another one wasn't needed because he knew that he would fail and I thought that was sophistry of the highest order. Now that sounds like quite a technical point but I don't think that you should take people to war on a prospectus that is about shoeling the rules about. I genuinely don't. And I think what people don't know is that yes, that's the only sort of protest march I've ever been on as a protester and I went with another person that had very recently been hired at the BBC. I'd only been in about a month and it said in your contract you're not allowed to be overtly political. And I was worried for my job. I thought I might get sacked for doing it. But it was so important to do that. What they don't know is that also a couple of months later that was when I joined up because it was the first time I'd been in a large media organisation. I'd worked in a number of small ones.”

   2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “To let me lead and to come with me, and as much as people talk about me being the catalyst, actually I'm not the party was the catalyst and we've built a tremendous team here that works together and I am so proud of my activists in Scotland because they've come a really long way and they have worked their backsides off and they deserve every and any success that's coming to this party.”

   2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “Guess when I was running for the leadership, I mean it had been quite tough. There was four of us in the campaign. I'd only been elected a few months before. I was the youngest MSP in Hollyrood. I was the least known. And everybody else was being described in the papers by their job. So it was Deputy Leader X, Transport Spokesman Y, committee convener Z. And then it was lesbian kickboxer Ruth Davidson. And I had to try and get past that. But my point was that if I was going to lead this party in Scotland, it wasn't going to be under a false banner. I wasn't going to pretend to be something that I'm not to get the job and then change in the job. I wanted people to know exactly what I thought we needed to improve on as a party in Scotland, how we got there.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “polygamy if you're a man but so some of the things we just accept are out of date and some of the things we believe are tenets of faith and some of that is changing in the theology of various major churches in the United Kingdom too”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Yes, I do, particularly since if you look at his voting record, he has been absolutely true to the liberal concepts of allowing people the right to choose for themselves, but also being allowed a space for personal faith. I feel him immensely, and when I talk about contradictions, it's hard when you're a young woman or a young man and you're reading Paul's letters to some of the churches overseas and they're talking about gay people being in the same league as idolaters and adulterers and thieves. You have to work your way through that. But what's great to see is that not only is organised religion and churches changing, but also some of the theology in some churches is changing in terms of knowing that some of the writings that are of their time are thought of of their time in the same way as don't wear two fabrics that are of different flax together stone two birds every time you have a period in some of the old testament stuff you know believe”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Well, firstly, I mean, if we're doing a timeline of this, I knew I was a conservative before I knew I was gay in the same way that people always try and put you in boxes and think that you can only be one thing. And one of the other things that I've had to work out in my own mind is where people also see conflicts. So they also think that you can't be a Christian and be gay or be out within the church. And that's not true either. So there's been quite a lot of contradictions in there, and I won't pretend that it's been easy and I won't pretend that there haven't been long nights of the souls, but fundamentally, in terms of my belief, my political belief, my faith, and also my sexuality, there are ways in which if you are all of these things, you have to make all of these things work together. And that's what I've tried to do.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “I mean, like I say, I believe in conservative values and I've outlined what I believe those to be slightly earlier in this interview, but I think it's that mixture really of fiscal conservatism, but social liberalism, the idea that the state doesn't actually sort of walk through the door of your house uninvited, the John Stuart Mill argument that if you're not doing anything to hurt anybody, then actually hire people intervening. So perhaps that's part of my LGBT background. I don't know. But I had thought that we had got to a stage where most Western democracies had a bit of a consensus about that. And then the last few years that's sort of been blown out of the water and it needs to be fought for again and again. And I'll continue to do that. I was over in Belfast last year doing a lecture on why I think that it's wrong that it's the only part of the United Kingdom which you're not allowed to get married if you're in a same-sex relationship. I'll always fight for the kind of the social freedoms that I believe in that are sometimes described as liberalism as well as the idea that the state doesn't take all of the money that you go out and”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “I guess it was looking at the world around me. I suppose my interest in world affairs had started much earlier. I remember being allowed to stay up late the night that the Berlin Wall came down because it was the night before, I think my 11th birthday. And that felt really big. And all of these big things were happening around the world. And then a few years after that, it came to me to start focusing not just on the world, but on the country around me as well.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “And you were 12 by the time she quit. So primary school when she left. So, I mean, maybe I was late to the party and I wasn't a William Hague that was reading The Financial Times at the age of six or whatever. But I don't think I had my kind of political awakening until I was in my high school years and my teenage years.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Well, I believe in conservative values. I believe in choice and freedom. I believe in responsibility. I believe in trusting people. I believe that the state shouldn't do everything for you because that's stifling, it's inhibiting, it narrows your horizons. I think that the pound in the pocket is better spent by the person that earned it, that you shouldn't have to be told there's only one school your child can go to if you're living in social housing, there's only one house you're allowed to live in, one town that you're allowed to go to, the bus routes determine where you're able to work. I don't like or see any of that as beneficial for helping people to get on and to fulfil their aspirations. But I mean, I think you slightly overstate in terms of me being a young woman during the time of Thatcher and that I was only six months old when she became Prime Minister.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “To be honest, I think you'd have to ask people who are writing nice things about me, about what it is. My view is kind of not to spend all of my time self-examining. My duty is to knuckle down and do the work. And I've kind of joked before that I'm a workhorse, not a showpony. one of these people that's the height of fashion or always got perfect makeup or any of that sort of thing and it's just for me it's always about the job what's the job that needs doing right let's go and do it”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “There's a column in the spectator which basically says I'm not that good. The only reason people like me is because I'm very far away. So maybe that's it. Who knows?”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “I would tell my party to get its house in order, get together, knuckle down, and make sure that our first commitment, our last commitment and our only commitment is to the country that we are incredibly lucky to serve, and we should never forget that”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “I've operated in Scotland long enough, more than 10 years as a journalist, more than six years in professional politics, to know that, to be honest, Nicola Sturgeon can cross a road and say that that's another reason to reopen the constitutional question. But what she doesn't understand is that people in Scotland, they voted, they made a decision, it was a clear decision, and now they want to get on with other things because we've got an education system that's not as good as it was. We've got faltering.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “I think that's quite patronizing. I also think the other part that's quite patronizing is the idea that all these male columnists and male proprietor newspapers are having conversations with all these male ex cabinet ministers about what do we need to do about Theresa. Well, do you know what? She's the Prime Minister of the country. None of you made it that far. Put up, shut up, get off the stage and let her get back to governing.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “I think the instability is going to be very difficult if that were to happen. I actually don't think it will. I think if the plotters were serious, they would be led by somebody a bit more serious. I think that the fundamentals have not changed. You've got a woman who is immensely strong, and one of the irritants over the last couple of days for me, particularly as a woman, is this idea that all of these men are supposed to be making decisions on Theresa May's behalf. Well, have they actually met Theresa May? You know, this is a woman with agency, with grip, with determination. I backed her in the leadership, I back her now, and I'll back her in the future.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “To be honest, I only really met Danny for the first time at this party conference, so it was very nice of him to write nice things about me. But as he well knows, I've got a job here in Scotland that I've been working very hard at for the last six years. We're beginning to see the fruits of the whole team's labour. We've built a good team. And it's quite important that we make sure we continue in Scotland because if it wasn't for the 13 Scottish MPs that were returned at the general election, then we might not have a Conservative government at all.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “What I said was that it needed to get over the fact that it had a massive wobble just because the Labour Party turned out to be a bit confident at their own conference. Well, do you know what? Jeremy Corbyn is eminently beatable. Not only that, we've just beaten him. And I've seen the sort of deification of leaders before. We had it in Scotland with Nicola Sturgeon. And three years after she was playing out rock venues to 10,000 people, she lost 40% of her seats in the general election just gone. So, yes, I know it can be daunting when you've got people chanting in the streets the name of somebody else, but that doesn't mean you don't knuckle down, get stuck in, make and remake the argument, show the drive, the energy, the ambition for the country, make sure people understand what it is that you're trying to do in politics, why you're trying to do it, how it's going to benefit their lives. That's what the party should be getting on with right now.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “And it's a pretty tough job. I've seen it up close and it's a pretty tough job and I'm not sure that they have got it. There's not a clamor for any one person. You can see that from out there.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Well, I think there's the usual sort of mixture of ambition and lack of self-assessment on whether they really are prime ministerial material.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “I have to say I'm not got much time for them. I really don't think that in terms of having a bit of a cold, you can hear that I've got one right now when you're trying to make a speech changes the fundamentals of whether Theresa May's the right person to lead the country and I think that there's an awful lot of people in our party that need to settle down.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “I was talking about the electoral system in Scotland because we've got four different types of voting and in the six years I've been leader of the party in Scotland I've had six national elections and two referenda so I was just trying to point out that I'm ring ready as it were I'll take on all opponents Labour, SMP, Liberal anytime you like”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “No one will be more relieved than Theresa May to have got to the end of what turned out to be a grueling speech. Her husband is rushing up onto the stage to greet her. She herself looked slightly tearful there at the end as they embrace. I should think for her it was a nightmare trying to just make it through to the end and deliver what had been built as one of the most important speeches of her life. But it is going to be overshadowed this speech by two things. One, the fact that her voice cracked. It was barely a whisper at certain points in that speech, but she carried on. And of course the interruption fairly early on from a serial pranker, a comedian.”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “I would tell my party to get its house in order, get together, knuckle down, and make sure that our first commitment, our last commitment and our only commitment is to the country that we are incredibly lucky to serve, and we should never forget that”

    2017-10-06 · Political Thinking with Nick Robinson · The Ruth Davidson One · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source