Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} On Winds of Change by On Winds of Change by Ruth Davidson. Completing the CAPTCHA proves you are a human and gives you temporary access to the web property. What can I do to prevent this in the future? If you are on a personal connection, like at home, you can run an anti-virus scan on your device to make sure it is not infected with malware. If you are at an office or shared network, you can ask the network administrator to run a scan across the network looking for misconfigured or infected devices. Another way to prevent getting this page in the future is to use Privacy Pass. You may need to download version 2.0 now from the Chrome Web Store. Cloudflare Ray ID: 660d0d72ddbc4e31 • Your IP : 116.202.236.252 • Performance & security by Cloudflare. Analysis: Ruth Davidson – a legacy of failure. To read Ruth Davidson’s letter of resignation as leader of the in good faith, the extraordinary events of this week have no bearing on her decision to abandon her post. The suspension of parliament, via a mechanism which raises questions without answer about the democratic credentials of the British state Davidson fought so frenetically to defend, supposedly did not influence her quitting. As a new mother, she has weighed her responsibilities, and with the prospect of a General Election looming – characterised, very democratically, as a “credible threat from our opponents” – she has decided to place family first. You won’t have Davidson to kick around anymore. For the moment, her true motivation for resigning is irrelevant to public debate. What matters is the effect, and the legacy. It has been the privilege of my life to serve as @ScotTories leader. This morning I wrote to the Scottish party chairman to tender my resignation. pic.twitter.com/CJ9EjW2RqN — Ruth Davidson (@RuthDavidsonMSP) August 29, 2019. In anticipation of the erstwhile Scottish Tory leader’s resignation , the past 24 hours have seen a wave of retrospectives and political eulogies for Davidson, most of which have been so homogenous in style and opinion that it probably would have saved time if Scotland’s columnists had simply got together and released a hasty cover of ‘Candle in the Wind’. Much of this commentary has been what you’d expect. “A disaster not just for the Conservative Party in Scotland but also for the Union at a moment of great peril,” warns Kenny Farquharson in . So fulsome were some of the tributes, one might be forgiven for thinking their writers were in mourning not just for Davidson’s leadership, but for all that they had invested in that project. Little over a year ago, the New Statesman’s Chris Deerin was anticipating the second stage of “a wildly successful career” for the Scottish Tory leader who was “the genuine article, the real deal, a politician of surpassing talent”, and who must surely be bound for the glory of Westminster, rather than remaining in the parochial confines of Holyrood. The possibility of a leader who never got her party above 30 per cent of the vote as not just a future first minister , but a potential occupant of Downing Street, was treated as credible by a great many allegedly credible people. Alas, all those moments will be lost. Tears in rain, etc. As pointed out by Alex Massie – who, unlike many of his Spectator colleagues, does not consider unionism a replacement for sanity – a lot of these earlier appraisals were reliant upon wishful thinking, and ignored what Massie politely terms “the structural and personal hurdles that needed to be overcome” to bring any fantasies of Ruth Triumphant into being. So, now that reality has squashed such dreams, what is – or rather, was – the reality of Ruth Davidson’s tenure? What did Ruth Davidson achieve? What major policy can she point to and claim responsibility? What impact did she make that will last beyond the voting public’s next turn at the polling booth? Other than increasing the Tory vote share in Scotland, what was the point of her? For some within the party, getting votes was enough. The chief thing the Conservative Party seeks to conserve is itself, followed closely by any version of Britain that is most amenable to keeping it in power. Ruth pulled off the first – a genuinely impressive PR coup that involved great claims of modernisation, backed up by scant evidence – but, in a Scotland we are forever told is just as right-wing as the rest of the UK but unaccountably refuses to vote like it, could never manage the latter. Of course, there was her famous ‘detoxification’ of the Conservative brand in Scotland. Like relabelling a bottle of bleach as lemonade, this did not change the reality of what the party was, what it stood for, or what it did. Davidson was always, a la John McCain, an outsider that the establishment could live with, and they did, even if many of those on the sharp end of Tory austerity did not. A smiling photo of Ruth astride a tank did not make the rape clause any less repulsive; chummy banter never helped anyone in need of a food bank; tax cuts for the rich don’t make any more economic sense coming from a ‘blue collar’ Tory than from an Etonian patrician. Writing in January last year, the Scottish political journalist Jamie Maxwell laid out the charges damningly, and they remain true today. Highlighting the 2017 council elections, Maxwell pointed out that the Tories under Davidson elected “a slew of candidates who either had a track-record of making racist remarks on social media or who had links to far-right groups such as Britain First, the BNP and the English Defence League”. Davidson’s loveable, faux-moderate, media-savvy image gave her cover to “exploit and amplify some of the worst chauvinistic instincts of the Scottish electorate” – and reap the benefits for her own political advancement. In the search for an actual achievement upon which to hang Davidson’s legacy, this may be as good as it gets – the introduction of a Trumpian triangulation between personality cult and the far-right to Scottish politics. For all the gossip about Davidson’s infamously chilly relationship with , they are similar in this regard – except Johnson, like the US president, has always been far more comfortable assuming the persona of the unreconstructed, reactionary base he relies upon. Davidson, on the other hand, could only retreat into hardline unionism. Her rationale for doing so lay in the 2014 referendum, which Davidson herself highlights in her resignation letter as the most important contribution of her working life. True, Davidson was there – memorably warning that an independent Scotland’s abolition of Trident would pave the way for Russian invasion – but then again, so was . To suggest that her role was anything more than marginal rather undercuts the idea that the case for the Union is ironclad. As for , there is no doubt that it posed a problem for Davidson – but then, in one way or another, it did the same for , Jeremy Corbyn, and pretty much everyone else. Davidson deserves no special sympathy there, and any suggestion that her response to Brexit signifies a worthwhile achievement deserves even less. Those who have watched Brexit’s troubled evolution will be hard-pressed to specify what impact any of her vaunted interventions had on the whole tawdry process. You can only call a lame duck an eagle for so long before political ornithologists start asking awkward questions. So, if there is little achievement of note to be found in the past, what impact might Davidson’s resignation have on the future, be it of the Scottish Tories or Scotland itself? A leadership contest is now inevitable, but beyond that, nothing is certain. The divide between Davidson and the Scottish Tory grassroots that became impossible to ignore – over Brexit, Johnson, whether or not either of these phenomena placed the Union in danger, and whether Scottish Tories should care – might be replicated should her deputy throw his hat in. Elsewhere, the changeable – he’s an academic, you know – may find that there’s only so many times you can be portrayed by your cheerleaders as a titanic intellect before you eventually have to prove it, especially if you’re a so-called expert in constitutional matters in the midst of a constitutional crisis without end. Hilariously, – who, on an issue-by-issue basis, is one of the most right wing MSPs ever to haunt Holyrood’s chambers – is still widely perceived within the party as some kind of liberal reformer, a characterisation that will do him no favours if he tries to take another swing at the leadership. Smilin’ , armed with the political instincts of an overripe banana, may benefit with both the Scottish Tory grassroots and the party’s UK leadership from being a Johnson loyalist, but neither of these endorsements guarantee much success amongst the Scottish electorate at large. The possibility of a schism exists, though the party will be keen to deny it. It should be remembered that ‘Operation Arse’, the Scottish Tories’ staggeringly unsuccessful attempt to prevent Boris Johnson from becoming the Conservatives’ leader, was not a one-woman operation. Others who had a hand in it will either speak up or keep their heads down – and judging by how scrupulously Scottish Tories have avoided interacting with the media since reports of their leader’s resignation first emerged, it is unlikely to be the former. What about Scotland and its constitutional future? According to her more sympathetic eulogisers, Davidson’s departure represents a serious blow to the unionist cause. This is not necessarily untrue, though it requires some qualification. Few would bet that her absence will increase Tory chances in either a snap General Election or the 2021 Holyrood elections, and nobody will be more aware of this than the SNP (even if, after the disappointments of 2017, their campaign operatives should have warnings against complacency tattooed on the brain). However, the Escher-like roadmap to a second referendum has not become less complicated by Davidson’s retreat from frontline politics; a Tory government in London which treats chaotic confrontation and a resistance to both compromise and democracy as its modus operandi still holds power, and a Section 30 order is no more likely this week than it was last week. The proroguing of parliament may inspire the Scottish people to think afresh about whether the British political system is something they really want to be a part of, but for now, public sentiment is not the deciding factor in achieving a vote. Oddly enough, Davidson’s resignation may ultimately prove less significant to the independence movement than the deal which has reportedly been hashed out between the beleaguered Richard Leonard and the UK Labour leadership, which establishes that permission for a second referendum, while not being ruled out, would not be granted within the “formative years” of a potential Labour government. What an epitaph for Davidson’s career that would be – ‘somewhat less important than Richard Leonard’. What else can be said? Here was a politician who could not and did not change her party, her country or the direction in which either of them went; who, as demonstrated by her final pledge to “support the party, the Prime Minister and Scotland’s place in the from the backbenches and beyond”, always gave in and defended the indefensible when the chance to dissent presented itself. Davidson sought to finally end constitutional discourse in Scottish politics, and now leaves it discussing little else. Ruth Davidson: Union 'will have to change' to survive. The Scottish Conservative leader told a conference in London that "things will have to change" to maintain the UK. First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is to publish a new paper to "restart" the independence debate later in the week. Ms Davidson said making the UK less London-centric would help people "feel we have a real stake in it". She suggested that a "newly-empowered fisheries industry" should be based in Peterhead post-Brexit, and floated the idea of a joint bid by football associations to host the World Cup across the UK. Ms Sturgeon is to publish a new economic report on Friday aimed at beginning a new debate about . This "growth commission", which the first minister first announced in September 2016, will look at what she calls the "economic opportunities of independence". Speaking at a Policy Exchange conference on the Union in London, Ms Davidson urged supporters of the UK not to be "complacent", noting that "anywhere between 40 and 45%" of Scots back independence along with a majority of MSPs. She said that "if we want the Union to flourish, indeed the UK to continue, then we need to work at it, to embrace change, and to think harder about how to do so". The Scottish Conservative leader argued that Scotland and other parts of the UK "don't just need more devolution, they now need more Union too". She said this could be achieved through "greater collaboration between our layers of government", and for cultural and political institutions to be shifted out of London. Examples she cited included running the UK's fisheries industry from Peterhead, a "second home" for the British Museum outside of London, and a "joint UK-wide World Cup bid" - "as long as it doesn't mean a joint team on the pitch". Ms Davidson added: "A country that spreads its power and culture networks across the country will ensure that all of us, no matter where we live, feel we have a real stake in it. "Too many people feel that the Union is something projected onto them. Spreading its benefits around more evenly will ensure it is something they own; something they want to belong to." In response, Ms Sturgeon accused the Conservatives of being "absolutely obsessed with Brexit". She said: "It strikes me that what Ruth Davidson and the Tories' objection is, is not to a debate about the best constitutional future of Scotland - it's to a debate in which the positive independence case is heard." Speaking before a meeting of her cabinet at the Clyde Gateway regeneration project in Glasgow, the first minister said the growth commission report due out on Friday would not "sugar-coat" potential "challenges" of independence, but would make an "optimistic, positive" case. She said: "After a couple of years where the debate, not just in Scotland but across the UK, has been very much about how we limit the damage of Brexit, I think this a refreshing opportunity to have a debate based on hope and ambition and how we maximise Scotland's opportunities in future." Ms Sturgeon said the timing of any future independence referendum was an issue for "later", referring back to previous comments where she said a decision would be taken once there was more "clarity" about the outcome of Brexit. meanwhile has argued that the SNP should focus on housing, economy and health instead of "igniting another divisive independence referendum campaign". Ruth Davidson attacks 's 'scorched earth' wind farm policy. She said there was no need for the "march of the turbines" to continue but SNP ministers were unwilling to review the situation or listen to "besieged" communities' concerns. Miss Davidson delivered the attack during a keynote speech marking her first anniversary as leader in which she argued that the state in Scotland has become so bloated it is harming society. Ruth Davidson has accused Alex Salmond of pursuing a "scorched earth policy" by decimating the countryside with more wind farms than are needed for his green energy targets. The Scottish Tory leader said official figures show the First Minister is on course to "overshoot" his targets by 20 per cent even if "the breaks are applied" to the rapid spread of wind power. She said there was no need for the "march of the turbines" to continue but SNP ministers were unwilling to review the situation or listen to "besieged" communities' concerns. Miss Davidson delivered the attack during a keynote speech marking her first anniversary as leader in which she argued that the state in Scotland has become so bloated it is harming society. As well as energy policy, she highlighted the educational "Berlin Wall" she aid exists between children living in the catchment areas of good schools and their peers living in poorer communities. She said the overbearing scale of Scotland's public sector was stifling enterprise and she wanted to cut income tax by more than 1p in the pound when MSPs get control over the levy in 2016. However, she reserved. more [truncated due to possible copy right] Ruth Davidson has accused Alex Salmond of pursuing a "scorched earth policy" by decimating the countryside with more wind farms than are needed for his green energy targets. The Scottish Tory leader said official figures show the First Minister is on course to "overshoot" his targets by 20 per cent even if "the breaks are applied" to the rapid spread of wind power. She said there was no need for the "march of the turbines" to continue but SNP ministers were unwilling to review the situation or listen to "besieged" communities' concerns. Miss Davidson delivered the attack during a keynote speech marking her first anniversary as leader in which she argued that the state in Scotland has become so bloated it is harming society. As well as energy policy, she highlighted the educational "Berlin Wall" she aid exists between children living in the catchment areas of good schools and their peers living in poorer communities. She said the overbearing scale of Scotland's public sector was stifling enterprise and she wanted to cut income tax by more than 1p in the pound when MSPs get control over the levy in 2016. However, she reserved her most vitriolic attack for Mr Salmond's green energy targets, whereby half the equivalent of Scotland's electricity would be generated from renewable sources by 2015 and all by 2020. Miss Davidson said figures show the wind farms that are already operational, under construction or have planning permission could provide 63 per cent of electricity by 2015. This proportion increases to 120 per cent - a fifth more than the entire country needs - if all the schemes currently in the planning system are approved. Speaking in central Glasgow, the Tory leader said: "Communities across Scotland are crying out for some sense of balance amidst the SNP government's headlong rush to carpet the countryside with wind turbines. "Even if the brakes are applied, he (Salmond) will still overshoot the target. We are being led to believe that nothing can halt the march of the turbines when . an urgent re-examination is needed." She concluded: "With the SNP's refusal to listen to local concerns, is this Mr Salmond's version of a scorched earth policy? He might not be able to break up Britain but he's devastating the landscape as he retreats." Miss Davidson used her speech to cite a series of examples to advance her argument that Scotland's public sector has grown so large that it is threatening individuals' freedom to choose. On education, she argued that the state comprehensive system risks "entrenching" the divide between pupils from well-off and poor families by denying parents a choice of schools outside their catchment areas. The Tory leader said this only serves to "cement Scotland's educational Berlin Wall" but it is her party's duty to "tear that wall down". State spending also needs curbing, she said, with the principle re-established that "the claim of an individual to the fruits of their labour is greater than that of the government." The Conservatives have already promised to cut income tax by 1p in the pound across all bands when Holyrood gets more tax powers, but Miss Davidson said she would support a larger reduction if this was affordable. A Scottish Government spokeswoman said: "Scotland has astounding green energy potential and vast natural resources, and we have a responsibility to make sure our nation seizes this opportunity to create tens of thousands of new jobs and secure billions of pounds of investment in our economy." It is time to change the law on assisted dying. Let’s talk about death. I know, it’s not very festive. Especially not in the middle of a global pandemic which has already claimed the lives of thousands. Add in the emergence of a mutant virus strain currently ripping through the country, that turned plans of seeing loved ones over the Christmas period to ashes, and, frankly, it is about as welcome as having being consigned to Santa’s naughty list. But it’s a subject that keeps nibbling around the edges of my brain, demanding attention. In a few months, I’ll walk out of the Scottish Parliament for the last time. Ten years of my life – and being a parliamentarian is your life, regularly derailing commitments to family and friends – over. It is natural to take stock, to smile at the wins, mourn the losses and fret over the ones that got away. And that’s how I feel about changing the law on assisted dying. We had an opportunity to do it at Holyrood, nearly six years ago now, when a tremendously brave MSP brought forward a private members’ bill. Diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and wishing greater control of her own death, Margo MacDonald passed away before the bill was introduced and a colleague brought it forward. In truth, it was flawed legislation and because the drafting was not all that it should have been, it was easier to strike down the text, rather than take on the difficult, emotional, conflicting subject matter. Indeed, the bill failed at the first hurdle, by a ratio of more than two to one, despite being a free vote with no party whipping its members. With me, it raised issues of faith and family (my sister is a doctor and made clear how much of an anathema helping people to die would be for her and close colleagues). Gut level unease overrode intellectual understanding of agency, and the unfairness of those with means having the choice to go abroad while those without being condemned to suffer. In a strange way it now feels like cowardice to have voted against, even though I know there was no way that particular bill, as drafted, would have survived the legislative process. And if I was genuinely torn at the time (it is one of only two votes I couldn’t sleep over, getting up to pace and worry through the night) then every life-change, new chapter and signpost since has pointed me in only one direction; it is time to change the law to let people have more control over their end-of-life decisions, up to and including how and where we die, who is there and the pain relief and treatment options we choose. The intellectual arguments in favour of assisted dying remain the same. It is surely wrong that people who seek release are kept in pain; that every eight days a terminally ill Briton travels to Switzerland to end their life; that this route is only open to those with up to £10,000 to pay for it; that even those with the means are often forced to make the journey earlier than they would choose in order to be strong enough to travel; that 300 terminally ill people in the UK commit suicide each year to end their own suffering. Wrong, too, that in , Wales and Northern Ireland, helping a terminally ill person to end their own life can carry a 14-year jail sentence, while in Scotland the same action opens the door to a culpable homicide charge. I don’t pretend this is easy – or that the intellectual arguments are all that there are to consider. But two things have tipped the balance for me. The first is going through the process of IVF. It may seem odd to say that medical intervention to help create life has hewn away inhibitions about a more planned or even medicalised end of life, but it has. The systems and processes of egg retrieval; choosing donors through any number of characteristics from height to family medical history; embryo implant and even being able to guarantee against twins, makes a mockery of the mystique of kismet surrounding birth. And if birth can be so demystified (for the over 50,000 people who undergo IVF treatments in the UK every single year) then what rule of fate exists for death and why is there such imbalance? The second is the diagnoses of a number of people very close to me with varying forms of dementia and watching the person that they were being consumed by a disease that strips them of themselves – their memory, relationships, personality and spark. Again, there is little to immediately link either cause with effect: those advocating for an assisted dying model are patently not talking about IVF issues nor are they suggesting that people with cognitive impairment – such as dementia – be included in the change of law. The campaigning organisation Dignity in Dying, which advocates for greater choice and control at the end of life, is absolutely clear that they are campaigning only for terminally ill, mentally cognitive adults to be allowed to end their life and aided in doing so. No assisted suicide for those who are not terminal; no euthanasia where a doctor administers the fatal dose to their patient. But, for me, a tortuous clash of head and heart, faith and intellect, right to life versus injustice of suffering was finally resolved by living the science of birth and watching the degeneration of mind, each day. To have the body able and the mind slowly dissolve is one thing. For the mind to stay clear and the body to be crippled in a pain with no release, and certain knowledge of a slow death outcome, prescribed by the state, goes beyond conscience. The arguments against – protection of medics, protection against coercion – have evidently been resolved to the satisfaction of the 185 million people across half a dozen countries with access to assisted dying provisions and no buyer’s remorse. In ten years of elected politics, I have made more mistakes than I can ever hope to remember some through overreach, some by omission, others by nothing more than blunder. But the mistake that eats away, demanding redress, is voting against assisted dying. Sometimes, amid complex arguments and conflicting evidence, you know – simply know in the essence of your being – that something is plain wrong. It’s time to change the law.