Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson mulls Westminster move
Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson is mulling a move to Westminster as part of wider ambitions for a bid to become the head of the party.
According to The Sun, the popular politician has told friends she may accept a peerage in London and become a Cabinet minister, in order to be taken seriously for a future leadership challenge.
Davidson, who is currently pregnant and due to give birth in October, could swap Holyrood for Westminster as early as next autumn, the paper reports. She has consistently polled as one of the most popular candidates for party leadership, vying against the likes of Boris Johnson, Jeremy Hunt and Sajid Javid, despite not currently being an MP.
The openly gay leader has been told she needs to prove her mettle by taking on a ministerial role before she can lay claim to the Tory crown.
“It’s dawning on her that she needs to prove she can run something bigger than just the Scottish Tory party to show members she would be good leader of the party and the country," a friend of Davidson told the paper.
“You can renounce peerages these days, so that’s how she’d do it as a stop gap before fighting a Westminster seat at the next general election, whenever it comes."
However Davidson has always insisted she would stay to fight the 2021 elections north of the border, having successfully overtaken Labour as Scotland's second biggest party.
Sources told Morning Wire that in the wake of former SNP leader Alex Salmond's resignation amid sexual harassment allegations, she was more likely to stay put and benefit from the fallout.
The Scottish Tories have denied suggestions that she would move before 2021.