Ruth Davidson
Ruth Elizabeth Davidson, Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links, PC (born 10 November 1978), is a Scottish politician who served as Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party from 2011 to 2019 and Leader of the Scottish Conservative Party in the Scottish Parliament from 2020 to 2021. She served as a Member of the Scottish Parliament (MSP) for Glasgow from 2011 to 2016 and for Edinburgh Central from 2016 to 2021.
The Baroness Davidson of Lundin Links
Elizabeth II
Nicola Sturgeon
Jackson Carlaw
- Murdo Fraser
- Jackson Carlaw
Jackson Carlaw
Jen Wilson
1
United Kingdom
2003–2006
Born in Edinburgh, Davidson was raised in Selkirk and later attended Buckhaven High School in Fife. After graduating from the University of Edinburgh, she worked as a BBC journalist and served in the Territorial Army as a signaller. After leaving the BBC in 2009 to study at the University of Glasgow, she joined the Conservative Party. At the 2011 Scottish Parliament election, Davidson was elected on the Glasgow regional list. Following party leader Annabel Goldie's resignation in May 2011, Davidson stood in the subsequent leadership election.
She won the contest and was declared party leader on 4 November 2011. In 2016, the Conservatives replaced the Labour Party as the second-largest party in the Scottish Parliament. Davidson resigned the leadership in August 2019, shortly after Boris Johnson became Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. She was succeeded by Jackson Carlaw who was replaced by Douglas Ross. After leading the party in Holyrood for several months, Davidson stood down at the 2021 Scottish Parliament election. In 2021, she was appointed a life peer in the House of Lords.
Davidson was generally considered a fairly successful leader, especially in 2016 and 2017. Ideologically, she is considered a centrist. She supported Scotland remaining part of the United Kingdom in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum. In the years after 2014, she continued to appeal to "No" voters in the referendum on that basis along with opposition to a second vote. She supported the UK remaining in the European Union in the 2016 EU membership referendum.
Early life and career[edit]
Davidson was born at the Edinburgh Royal Maternity Hospital and Simpson Memorial Maternity Pavilion.[1] She was raised in Selkirk and later in Fife. Her family lived in Raeburn Place and then Bridgelands Road, Selkirk, and Davidson attended Knowepark Primary School until Primary 3.[2][3][c] Her father, Douglas, a mill manager at Laidlaw & Fairgrieve, had played professional football for Partick Thistle F.C. in his younger days and was a midfielder for Selkirk F.C. during the late-1970s and early-1980s. When her father took a job in the whisky industry, the family left the Borders for Fife, where she attended the state secondary Buckhaven High School.[4][5] Her parents voted Conservative but were not especially involved in politics.[6]
Davidson studied English literature at the University of Edinburgh, gaining an undergraduate Master of Arts (MA Hons) degree.[7][8][9] After graduation, she joined the Glenrothes Gazette as a trainee reporter. She later moved to Kingdom FM, followed by Real Radio, and finally joined BBC Scotland in late 2002 where she worked as a radio journalist, producer, presenter and reporter. She left the BBC in 2009 to study International Development at the University of Glasgow.[5][10] She also served as a signaller in the 32 Signal Regiment[11] of the Territorial Army for three years (2003–06) before suffering a back injury in a training exercise at Sandhurst.[12][5][10]
Personal life[edit]
On 18 February 2015, Davidson appeared in a party election broadcast in which she was seen with her same-sex partner Jen Wilson, a 33-year-old Irish woman from County Wexford.[119][120] Davidson announced her engagement to Wilson in May 2016.[121] On 26 April 2018 Davidson announced that she had become pregnant after receiving IVF treatment, and that she and Wilson were "excited" to be expecting their first child.[122][123] On 26 October, Davidson gave birth to a boy at Edinburgh Royal Infirmary.[124]
In a 2015 interview with BBC Radio Scotland, Davidson spoke about struggling with her sexuality: "I struggled with it for a number of years actually before I would admit it to myself, never mind to anybody else. But there comes a point at which you make a decision and that decision is either that you're going to live a lie for the rest of your life, or you're going to trust yourself, and that's what I had to do."[125] In her memoirs, published in 2018 and serialised by The Sunday Times Magazine, Davidson writes of struggling with mental health issues as a teenager, something that she says was triggered by the suicide of a boy in her village.[66] She has said that these struggles almost dissuaded her from running for leadership.[126]
Davidson is a member of the Church of Scotland and counts dog walking, hillwalking and kickboxing as her hobbies.[127][128] She supports Scottish football team Dunfermline Athletic.[129] On 23 October 2015, Davidson became the first female Scottish politician to appear as a panellist on the BBC One satirical news quiz Have I Got News for You.[130] In 2017, Davidson became Honorary Colonel of 32nd Signal Regiment.[131] Davidson was included in Time magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2018.[132][133]
In January 2024, Davidson competed in the BBC celebrity 'Mastermind' series. Her specialist subject was the life of the patron saint of France, 'Joan of Arc'. Davidson went on to win the show with a total of 23 points.