The general election was NOT a huge victory in Scotland for Ruth Davidson
Look at the size of her weaponry: Ruth Davidson may have parked her tanks on the SNP’s lawn but she’s firing blanks and will lose those seats at the next election.
I haven’t been awake for more than an hour and already I’m sick of one line of spin – that Scottish Tory Ruth Davidson has played a blinder.
Yes, the Conservatives have picked up 12 seats in Scotland, but This Writer does not believe it has much to do with the over-inflated Ms Davidson.
It seems clear that many Scottish voters have become disillusioned with the SNP and gone back to Scottish Labour – but not enough to give either party a majority in those 12 constituencies.
Instead, the Conservatives have been able to take advantage of a stable voting base in those constituencies. As the SNP’s vote fell and Labour’s rose, neither party had as many voters as the Tories. It’s as simple as that.
These are the situations that encourage people to advocate ‘tactical’ voting – supporting a party you don’t want locally, in order to ensure that you get what you want nationally.
This Writer does not subscribe to that point of view. You should vote for the candidate, the party, and the government that you want.
At the next election – whenever that may be – expect those constituencies to shift back, either to the SNP or Labour.
Ruth Davidson’s victory is a statistical blip.
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It appears to have been a case of a divided opposition in those Scottish seats that the Tories won. I have no doubt that the people of those constituencies (one of which contains some of my distant relatives) will put that right at the next election because, believe me, generally speaking Tories are loathed by most Scots people.
Luckily I’ve managed to avoid that line of spin so far today by watching the French Open tennis and shopping, but I have to agree with you that she had nothing to do with the Tory gains, other than appearing on all the identical candidate leaflets headed “The only party to stop the SNP”. Since the Tories became the 2nd party up in Holyrood she has become a patronising eejit, full of her own importance.
I haven’t checked out all constituences to see where swings came from but in mine most of the Tory votes came from the LibDems. The SNP loss was 3.8% and the Labour gain 3.7%, pretty even, which would suggest you are right in this case. The LibDems only did as well as they did in 2015 because Michael Moore had been a popular MP for 18 years. Many voters stuck with him, despite the coalitiion, but had no such loyalty to a new candidate. They lost 14% to the Tories.