Yesterday’s Men for Tomorrow’s Woman

If Murdo Fraser can boast that a bare majority of his colleagues are backing his leadership campaign, Ruth Davidson enjoys the support of many of the party grandees. Indeed with the likes of Michael Ancram and Lords Forsyth and Sanderson in her corner it’s tempting to suggest her campaign amounts to Yesterday’s Men for Tomorrow’s Woman.

The best thing Ruth – whom I’ve known for many years – has done in this campaign is pledge to support cutting income tax. Not because there’s any prospect the Tories will be able to deliver this any time soon but because it sends an overdue signal about what the party believes in. It offers a contrast with the other parties that, however fledgling, has the chance of taking flight one day. There needs to be much more of this.

And rather less, frankly, of the stuff she came out with today. The choice, she says, is between “self-destruction” and some sunny future that can be willed into being by a younger, more media-savvy, fesity leader.