Yes She Can: Why Women Own The Future by Ruth Davidson

CRAIG

Hello, and welcome to Desperately Seeking Wisdom, with me, Craig Oliver. This is a podcast for people who want to live a simpler, more fulfilled life, but aren’t sure how to get there. A little while back I hit the buffers, and I decided to look for a different, better way of living. So, for Desperately Seeking Wisdom, I’ve been talking to some wise people. People who’ve managed to change or have had change forced upon them. What was the wisdom that got them through it? What would they say that would help others, who like me, were struggling?

RUTH

I have a very strong memory of being on the ground, being on the road, and somebody putting a blanket over me. I remember waking up in the ambulance, my mum was down the far end, on the, the jump seat and she looked about a hundred and four. So I ended up going to three hospitals in the same day, one to kind of stabilise me at the A&E and then I don't really remember anything else until I woke up in the Children's Hospital.

CRAIG:

My guest today is the politician, Ruth Davidson. Ruth always struck me as a force of nature - funny, passionate, capable. It was only lately that I discovered she had twice overcome serious injury, and struggled with depression. But none of that has defined her life. She's found joy campaigning, and more recently in raising a family in Scotland, from where she spoke to me.

RUTH

I've just recently moved. So I moved out of Edinburgh and just down the coast to a nice little seaside town which is, you know, the old traditional things of good schools and, and all the rest of it, so hopefully, it's a bit of a new start.

CRAIG

Was that a conscious decision to sort of change down a gear and focus on what really matters?

RUTH

Well, I think, um, when I stopped being leader of the party in Scotland, um, I’d sort of made a promise that until my child, or if we were lucky enough to be blessed with another, er, my children were back at school, that I wouldn't take any kind of big jobs on. I think you'll know yourself, Craig, from your time in politics, the people that, er, struggle the most are those that - whose names aren't on a ballot paper, the sort of wives, girlfriends, husbands, children that miss out when something breaks or falls down, or you can't make, or you turn up late, or you have to cancel or whatever. So, er, this is one of the promises I want to stick to.

CRAIG

It sounds like it's a bit more chilled than what went before, that you had this kind of very frenetic life, as you've sort of said then. How are you to live with now?

RUTH

[LAUGHS] Um, I'd like to think I've always been alright to live with. I’d, I'd like to think that I had an ability to, to hang some of my troubles up with my coat when I got in at night. I think, for me, I mean, er, I had to learn on the job, I had to make all my mistakes in public, and politics can be pretty brutal, and it, it's pretty red in tooth and claw in Scotland, and the only thing I had was being able to work harder.

So what I had particularly at the beginning was just Boxer the carthorse from ‘Animal Farm’. I will work harder and just, you know, I, I - certainly at the beginning, I mean, I flogged myself, I flogged myself rotten, to try and get the party back up on its feet in Scotland. And yeah, this is a different type of working, so, um, like I say, I promised I wouldn't do any big jobs but that doesn't mean that I'm able to sit still, because I've never been able to sit still. So I'm doing lots of little jobs but yeah, there's a - there's more control, I think. There's more control.

CRAIG

We'll talk a lot about the politics a bit later, ‘cos there's so much in there, but I guess you are used to a sort of minute to minute, you're not stopping, every moment’s accounted for life and suddenly you're not. Is that, Is that difficult or a struggle?

RUTH

Um, I think if I'd been one of those politicians that was working a hundred miles an hour, doing the sort of hours that you do just before an election and, you know yourself, Craig, that it's - I mean, it's - it is literally every waking minute, and you don't sleep much. And then you had a bad election and you found yourself out of a job that day, and you didn't have the kind of family life that I’d built just before I stepped down.

I, I think the gear change would be really hard. Actually, the, the kind of crescendo to a cliff drop off after an election, I found hard anyway. I mean, I was only leader for just under eight years and I had seven national elections, so it’s not like I didn't have one every year. If you include, er, referendums in that, so, y- you know, it was pretty busy. But the week after an election, you're a bit like, ‘What will we do now?’ and, and you’d still be at quite high capacity. You’d still be, you know, in Parliament or pulling your Shadow Cabinet together, or doing speeches, making sure you attend all of the, the business dinners you're supposed to attend, and the fundraisers, and the party events, the this and the that and the other, but because it's not at the same tempo, you, you do feel it.

CRAIG

You know, it's interesting what you were saying there because, I mean, basically my political career ended with the end of the Brexit referendum, and I found definitely after that, that if I had a spare 15 minutes or something, that I was looking around and thinking, you know, ‘I'm supposed to be doing something’, or, ‘Why isn't the phone ringing? or ‘Why should’ - and, and I realised I was a bit of a, er, almost like a junkie, and you're so used to all the adrenaline and stuff that it’s very, very hard to come down. But it sounds like you're saying that you prepared for it?

RUTH

Well, I mean, I think, you know, I, I was very lucky in that I got to choose the time and manner of my leaving. Not everybody gets that. You know, it, it wasn't a decision that I took one day and then resigned the next. There, there had been several weeks in the lead up to that, where even if I hadn't told even my close team in case it came out. Um, I was mentally preparing myself for it, I was preparing my family for it.

But don't think that the loss of control wasn't felt, because I’d been, you know, in charge for the longest that, that anyone had been, the longest kind of serving leader, because we'd scaled up so much in the time that I was there, because I was very lucky that the time that I took over, it was just after the UK Conservatives went into government, and I kind of gathered a lot of, of things to myself. And, you know, there was a core team, er, that worked with me.

And the Scottish Conservatives were our fiefdom, and I was involved in everything. You know, I, I had a finger in every pie, because I'm a control freak. Er, so still being part of that organisation after I stepped down from being the leader, and suddenly not being aware of everything that was happening, that was quite difficult. The not being in the room part of it was the bit that I missed.

CRAIG

But I wanted to start by saying on paper, I suppose you and I couldn't be more different, but I’m gonna try and persuade you, um, that we [‘Cos you’re a posh boy] might have a lot in com- we might com- that, um, come - well, actually, I went, [LAUGHTER] I went to a S- I went to a Scottish comprehensive school, I’ll have you know.

RUTH

And you sound just like it, Craig. [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

Er, yeah, I sound just like it. I - and, and I studied English Literature like you did.

RUTH

Yeah, yeah, no, that’s true. We’ve got that in common.

CRAIG

Um, we both - we do both be- we both became broadcast journalists, worked for the BBC. Um, and then we ended up, er, in politics. So you see the similarities?

RUTH

You’re terribly gallant. I think we had a very different level at which we were working in the BBC, but that's very kind of you to include me in that.

CRAIG

But you know, there's a pattern there.

RUTH

Yeah.

CRAIG

[LAUGHS] OK, you're not going for it. Um…[LAUGHS]

RUTH

Shameless show-offs that want to meddle. Yeah, yeah, okay, fine.

CRAIG

I think that sounds about right. Let's get back to your childhood.

RUTH

Oh, I, I think…there was definitely rules. Um, you know, we were, you know, our mum brought us up to be polite and courteous and to, you know, for example, I, I used to play a lot of sport. You probably wouldn't think it by looking at me, but, um, I was a very good squash player, I sort of became a tennis coach and all sorts of stuff. And I've sort of competed for my county, kind of got to Scotland squad level, though never Scotland team level, er, at, at squash.

But I couldn't always get up the rankings, ‘cos I wasn't always allowed to compete because the competitions were held over two days and that meant I couldn’t go to church on a Sunday some, some weekends, so it’s - so stuff like that. But, but my parents are, are not joyless people. You know, there was - my, my dad worked for a whisky distillery, so it's not like we were a, a dry household, or, [LAUGHS] [Yeah, and I notice he played the-] you know, and they, they love parties, and they're very sociable people.

Um, but, you know, my mother is - has perfected the Scottish mammy whisper shout, in that she would grab the top of your arm, and very quietly go, ‘You will behave or when I get you home, we will make sure that your father hears about this’. And Scottish mammy whisper shouting is possibly the scariest thing in the world. So, so yeah, so i-in a sense, it w- it was - in some stuff they were terribly relaxed about and then other stuff, um, how you conducted yourself, the fact that you respected books, you never brought the spine of them, you never turned the pages of them, the fact that you had to stick in at school.

I mean, I remember after a parents’ evening, I got a row when my mum got home because I'd had a two for effort in science, but I'd had a one across the board in terms of results, so it didn't matter that I was acing it. but I hadn't actually applied myself, so -

CRAIG

So I'm, I'm old enough that when I was in, er, in school in Scotland, I did O grades, um, and I got seven A's and one B, and I remember opening in front of my parents and my parents saying to me, ‘Why didn't you try hard on physics? You could have got an A in that as well’ and it, it was quite a focus on, what could you improve rather than how well you've done.

RUTH

Yeah. So I, I think that's it and what I said before about the, the driving force, um, when I became leader of the party, was about not letting people down. That's quite a Scottish Presbyterian thing, this idea that it's not about succeeding or making people proud, it's about not failing or not letting people down. And it's, it's almost the same thing, but there is a difference. There's a difference in inference. There's a different driver there. Er, and that kind of fatalism, I think, is part of it. And that's, you know, what you try to avoid.

CRAIG

Is that a good thing?

RUTH

You know, I, I think a couple of centuries of Protestant work ethic would tell you that it can have its advantages, [LAUGHS] but…

CRAIG

It can have its advantage, but I guess it also can make you feel like you've got to constantly extend yourself or push, or [Yeah] - so I, I often someti- noticed that, in myself that when I achieved something, I felt relief, [Yeah] rather than [That’s it] happy about it. You'd be like, ‘Oh, right. Great, I've done that so nobody's gonna be disappointed in me’ and not actually, ‘Oh, wow, that was quite a good thing to have done’.

RUTH

Yeah, so it's, it’s not a pat yourself on the back. It's a, it's a, you know, phew off the bow. [Yeah] You sort of survived another one.

CRAIG

And your d- I didn't know that your dad played for Partick Thistle, who I think Billy Connolly said’s full name was Partick Thistle Nil.

RUTH

[LAUGHS] Yeah, so he, um, he was a part-time professional so he always works alongside his football but yeah, he played Partick Thistle in Scotland. When he worked over in Northern Ireland for a bit, he played for Portadown. He moved to the Scottish Borders before me and my sister were born, he went to work in the mills, er, which is why we were born down there. And, er, they don't have any professional teams down there, so he played at quite a high amateur level and actually, he won the Scottish Qualifying Cup, which was for non-league teams to kind of get into the, the Scottish Cup main draw. So, so yeah, he, he played and coached stuff in - well into his 30s, er, at, at kind of high amateur level as well.

CRAIG

And it says here that you played for Largo Boys under 14s at school.

RUTH

First girl to do so. Still a, still the greatest achievement, you know, right up there.

CRAIG

So it's an achievement to do it as a girl, but it's also an achievement to do it because when you were five, you were actually very badly injured and almost couldn't walk.

RUTH

Yeah, I got run over by a truck when I was crossing a road outside my house, um, and it, it was very serious. So, I… broke my leg, fractured my pelvis. Er, my femoral artery, the kind of main artery to the, the bottom half your body was crushed. Er, I severed nerve to the front of my leg. I was in hospital for a r- a really long time. I had to be put in sort of pins and traction and stuff like. They, they actually pioneered a new type of leg setting on me, ‘cos at, at one point they thought that, that they would have to - I would have to lose the leg and, and lose it like, right at the hip, just because they couldn’t get blood to it.

So it was, it was a kind of eight hour operation to take lots of bits of blood vessel from other parts of my body and, and rebuild the, the artery so that there could be blood flow to the bottom, like the whole b- bottom of my body had turned black and stuff like that. It was, it was - I mean, I don't remember a thing about it, but um...

CRAIG

Do you remember being hit?

RUTH

I, I don't remember being hit. I have a very strong memory of being on the ground, being on the road, and somebody putting a blanket over me. I remember waking up in the ambulance. My mum was down the far end on the, the jump seat, and she looked about a hundred and four, and that she looked awful. I remember being in the first hospital they took me to. I woke up. I wasn't allowed any water, I was, I was parching thirsty, and they had cotton buds that were like, dipped in this like, lemon goo that the wiped on my lips. My lips were all cracked.

So- so I ended up going to three hospitals on the same day. One to kind of stabilise me at the A&E and then, I was sent off to the orthopaedic, big hospital in Edinburgh. They decided that it was too specialist ‘cos I was so young and they sent me off to the Children's Hospital. So I, I don't really remember anything else until I woke up in the Children's Hospital.

CRAIG

You must have been living with a lot of pain.

RUTH

Yeah, I mean, I think when you're, when you're five your, your bones knit together quicker than they do when you're older. So the worst part was because I was laid out flat for so long. Once they got the kind of pins and stuff out, once the bones had knitted together, I was put in a full body cast, so I was plastered from sort of just my armpits, and then down to my toes on my right leg, and then down to just above the knee on my left leg.

So I was like, you could - you could have lifted me up like Superman and stuff like that. Actually, the most frightening thing was getting that cut off me with a circular saw. They just cut right down the side and I was screaming. But, er, the worst part was because I was laid out for so long, like nothing bent. So we had to kind of do the hydrotherapy stuff where you do your physio in a hot pool, and you had to kind of like try and bend your joints, and that, that was sore. That’s… the sorest thing -

I mean, I've, I've got quite a cavalier attitude to personal safety, and I've broken a lot of bones and I had a 10 pound baby, so I would like to say that I could talk with some kind of authority on pain, but like, that is the sorest thing ever.

CRAIG

Yeah, I’m, I'm wincing [LAUGHTER] listening to this. Um -

RUTH

It was pretty grim. I'm not gonna lie.

CRAIG

Yeah, and, and you say character forming experience, but in all, in, in all seriousness, like, you know, being a five-year-old who's been through that, that is going to have an impact on who you are, isn't it?

RUTH

Um, I mean, it’s h- it's kind of hard to tell because as - I don't really remember much before it. Some of the kind of character traits that I have that, that people might attribute to having a big kind of trauma and, and then having to, to work hard to kind of catch up with your peers and stuff, both in terms of schoolwork ‘cos you hadn’t been in school for ages, both in terms of just being able to physically walk, having to relearn how to walk again.

Er, I, I don't know whether I would be determined and dogged and tenacious, and some of the other - you know, some of the character traits that I have anyway. You know, you - I, I [So-] can't tell ‘cos it's always been there.

CRAIG

School can be a pretty rough place, even a primary school, but you were sort of going around the playground with a Zimmer frame. Were, were you actually teased for that?

RUTH

Less so for the Zimmer. I’m covered with scars, and…

CRAIG

Still?

RUTH

Yeah, I mean, they’ve faded now but when I, obviously, when I first started back they were like bright red and stuff. Um, like I'm split from knee to crutch on one leg. Er, so maybe 13 inches. And then on the other side of that leg, I've got kind of three big kind of holes and indentations, er, with scars along them. I've got sections of, of scar tissue and, and shiny bits where my ankle bones protruded from out of the skin and stuff like that. Um, I’m pretty ruined. [LAUGHS] You know, [Yeah] there's a reason I've never really worn a lot of short skirts in my life.

CRAIG

You're not convinced, but I did actually go to a Scottish comprehensive school with an English accent, which also was a very character forming experience. [Yeah] Um, did you feel like an outsider?

RUTH

So, so did you adopt, did you adopt a Scottish accent? Can you do one?

CRAIG

I, I can. I'm not gonna do one here, but, um, [Ah, go on] it’d be too emb- no - er, no, I’m not going to. But I do remember, like, having the acc- English accent at school and my brother, I think, really accentuated it, and I remember thinking, how do I assimilate here, because it was not a popular thing, [LAUGHS] being English in a Scottish school. I think I always felt like an outsider because of it. Did you feel like an outsider, all your experiences, that kind of thing?

RUTH

Um, I, I don't think because of that. I, like I say, I, I was I was born, er, in the Borders and I'm - my parents moved when the mills shut, up to five. So I joined that primary school, not from primary one. So I'd only been at the school a couple of months when the accident happened, and then I had to go back after, so I did feel like an outsider but that's because almost everyone in my class had been to the same nursery school, they were born in the same maternity ward at the same hospital 12 miles away.

Er, if there was a sense of otherness, then it was because of, of that and I think it's, it’s maybe quite interesting that my best mate at primary and high school was a girl who joined not long after me, but had come up from England from, from, er, Merseyside. We got on because we were both kind of incomers.

CRAIG

Yeah. And, and I, I'm a talker and you definitely are. [LAUGHTER] Um, [Yeah, yeah] Do think that, do you think that - and do you think that's part of the experience, lear- you know, learning how to talk?

RUTH

No, um, because all of the women in my family, back generations, are all talkers. Yeah, my sister's a talker, my mum, when all of the Ritchie women get together, which is my mum's side of the family, it’s, you know, all of that.

CRAIG

So, when you went to university, um, it sounds like things didn't go quite as expected.

RUTH

I, I went to it at 17, and I think, looking back, not that you could have told the 17-year-old me that that was too young or too early, I think it was a bit too young and too early. But it's just the way the Scottish school system works and because of when I was born. But I think what I wasn't really equipped for was how much people don't care. [LAUGHS] Like, so I'd, I’d gone from - my high school was in a place called Buckhaven, very, very mixed, er, kind of cohort of people there.

Huge amounts of the, the kind of area that, that it took kids from, was what we euphemistically call, um, ‘challenged’ or, you know, there's loads of kids on free school meals. Um, my year group in first year was about 300 strong, and there was only, I think in my high school sixth year photo, there's less than 90 that did the full schooling. You know, so lots of people left a- at 16. You know, my s- my sister had been the head girl, I was the deputy head girl.

I'd been you know, I’d, I, I'm quite a joiner, I’m quite a doer, so I’d - there wasn't a theatre group, so me and another girl set one up. I was in the debate team, I played the clarinet in the wind band, and I played for the tennis team. Like, I, I did lots of things. So then I went to university and I did an, an arts degree like you say, like English Literature at Edinburgh. Everybody had, you know, came from Roedean and St Mary’s Cam and Marlborough, and Harrow and Eton and all this other stuff.

They'd all gone off and done a gap year, building orphanages in Tanzania, or saving orangutans and stuff like that. Like, had cars and gilets and tasselly loafers, and p-pinkie rings on the men and stuff. And they're all like, 20 and, and just - like, I think if I could go back, what I would tell myself is that confidence is not the same as ability. They were all super confident, super confident, and they were loud. I don't think that made them smarter than me. That's what I didn't know at the time. I was too - that’s what I wasn't old enough to know.

CRAIG

It's funny you say that because I actually turned down a university ‘cos I went along and just didn't feel that I fitted in or was confident enough to go there. I felt like, I remember actually turning up for some of the interviews and stuff and just feeling, ‘Oh my God, you know, this, this, this just isn’t me’. And I do look back and think, what was it about the schooling, the environment that meant that I didn't feel confident? I didn't feel like I was, fitted in and others had that in spades. But you seemed to have made - you made that leap and became incredibly confident after a while, but you just weren't at that stage.

RUTH

Yeah, I mean, I think. I mean, I was diagnosed in, er, my first year of uni with clinical depression, and it was a mixture of things. I think part of it was, was being away from home and, and feeling like a fish out of water. Also doing an arts degree, there was so little of your time was taught time, it was all go away, read three books and a collection of poetry. Do nine hours of scheduled classes, but write us three essays a week, and it was all, you know, it was unstructured time, and, and that was quite difficult for me.

But also, er, a guy that I knew from my village who’d been run over on the same stretch of road as I had several years after, and had been injured as well, but to a lesser degree than me, he committed suicide. And despite the fact that we weren't best mates or anything, I knew him, we had loads of pals in common. His, his dad had been a music teacher of mine. I don't know what it is about Martin's dying, but it completely, completely threw me off.

I mean, if I was to play amateur psychologist, I think it was a kind of survivor guilt. Like, I'd been much worse hurt, I survived. He was much less hurt, he was dead. I didn't deserve to still be here. And, er, that really, really kicked things into quite a, a difficult couple of years for me.

CRAIG

So I think, I mean, it's interesting listening to you say that ‘cos you're talking about survivor guilt, but what I also hear is you use the word ‘deserve’. Like, you know, did - do - are you worthy? Do you deserve it? And of course, you are worthy and of course, you deserve to be here, and it's nothing to do with you, but it does sound like the way you're talking about it, at some sort of psychological level, that you - you didn't feel worthy, and that you - and that that, that's, that's a very sad thing to confront, isn't it?

RUTH

Well, it's not the best period I’ve had in my life, Craig, no.

CRAIG

No. [LAUGHTER] And - but do you feel able to explore that sort of thing, about not feeling that you deserved it?

RUTH

Yeah, I think - I'm not entirely sure it’s one for a podcast, but yes, I have explored it. Um, I talked about it a little bit in a book I wrote. Um, I was always very clear. Um, I’d done a lot of work with one of the big mental health charities in Scotland called SAMH when I was a politician. I've been very supportive of their work in my role as kind of opposition leader and trying to challenge the government to do more. And I'd always spoken to them about how I wanted to, to kind of talk about it, but being somebody from a, a journalism background, er, I wanted to be able to do it on my own terms, because I wanted to own the way in which it was presented, and the, and the way in which it was told, because I, you know, I didn't want a sudden headline screaming that, you know, Tory leader’s a maddy, that should be locked up or something like that.

You know, in, in the way that saying something which can be cut up and taken out of context, can be portrayed in the manner in which it’s not meant. So, er, I'd always wanted to be open about it and I was pleased that I had the opportunity to do so before I, I stepped down, because I know how much it would have helped me, because when I was first given the diagnosis, you know, and, and this is 20-some years ago now. This is 1990… six, ’97? ’97 I think. Um, you know, I, I literally didn't know whether that meant I was mad. I didn't know if that's what madness was.

Because we didn't talk about it as much, it was very shameful. I didn't want anyone to know. It was, it was really tough, and I think it would have helped me to know that it doesn't necessarily define you. I mean, you will have to manage it your whole life, and I've had to manage it my whole life, but that doesn't stop you doing things. And, and I think at that time, er, you know, I was just starting at uni, I had big dreams, everyone does. You know, I, I still thought I could win Wimbledon, you know, maybe one day.

Er, [LAUGHS] but, er, the idea that you could go on and have a big job, that you could be in the public eye, you could be in politics at all, and have this big shameful secret, it, it didn't occur to me. I thought that that was my ambition over. I thought - and it would have helped me and I hope that somebody out there was helped by the fact that they could see, you know, a politician or Prince Harry talking about it, you know, when you see people that do jobs in that space, or in a space that you're interested in, hopefully it helps. I hope it helps.

CRAIG

But it's, it's, isn't it terrible that, you know, like millions and millions of people experience these things and feel these things, and yet you didn't feel able to talk about it because you were worried that somebody would, you know, shame you, or the media would behave in a certain way. That’s sad, isn't it?

RUTH

Well, actually, I, I… considered not throwing my hat in the ring for leader in case it came out. [Yeah] In case my medical history that came out, because I think - I'm trying to remember dates, but I became leader in 2011, so I think it - so it would be after, it would be after the press got hold of Gordon Brown's children's medical records, which felt like a, a really egregious breach. But the idea that the papers had the power to find out and open up people's medical records, why wouldn't somebody want to find that out about the new leader of the Tories in Scotland?

CRAIG

And also, not just that, people being intrusive or treating you badly, but also that sense that it's somehow shameful. Then of course, it's not shameful, it’s you know -

RUTH

No, it’s not, that’s the- and that's the thing, and, and actually in a weird way, possibly part of my resilience, and possibly part of my ability to wear some things lightly, if, if I have that, I think I do, er, for others to judge, is because I know myself, and my ability to kind of, own saying no, or choosing a more difficult path, or being a thorough pain in the arse to the chief spin doctor for the leader of the UK Tory party, for example, which I may have done on occasion, and I, I was gonna apologise, Craig, but actually, I'm not sorry, I really am- [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

I - l- I would, I would forgive you if you meant it, but yeah, [LAUGHTER] you were occasion- you were occasionally a total pain in the arse.

RUTH

I was occasionally a total pain in the arse. I like to think that I had a point to it. I'd like to think I wasn't a pain in the arse whimsically.

CRAIG

I do remember having one conversation with you which was like, why did you think this would be helpful? But anyway, that's not the point of - this is still not - this is not the point of what, what we're talking about. But no, I, I do, I do wanna talk about the wisdom that you gained from it, because actually, [Mm] going through that, you did - and, and sharing that because, look, I'm very different experience to you.

The reason I wanted to do this podcast was that sort of realisation, I took a look at my life and felt like I'd been working madly for years and years and years, and thought that there would be some moment where I crossed the line and I'd be happy, and everything would be okay. And then I just realised that's just not the case and I need to take a look, and is there a better way of living? So I haven't experienced as extreme things as you, but I certainly felt unable to talk to people about it, or say, ‘Look, I'm just not happy’ or ‘This isn't okay’. And that's why I want to talk to people like you because the more people open up and explain that what they've learned from what they've been through, then that will help.

RUTH

You, do you know, I think what's important is that we're not painting me as some sort of miserable loser, like my entire life. Actually, I've had a really happy life. There have been times of complete joy in my life. Um, and while I am a warrior and while I do give myself a hard time, and, you know, I'm, I’m one of these people that replays conversations in their head at night and beats themselves up at night for not saying X or not doing Y, um, actually, I can have moments of complete clarity and complete happiness.

And, um, I was a pretty happy go lucky kid. Um, I did struggle at university. There were times in my adult life, um, do you know what? I don't think I've ever enjoyed myself more than the period that I had in the Territorial Army. There was something amazing about the physical tiredness that you get after a day of carrying, or however many tonne pack, and you know, yomping around fields and, and feeling like you're learning and that you're contributing, and you're stretching yourself.

Um, and you're doing something that's inherently virtuous, um, and I believe, believed passionately then, still believe that the UK is a, a force for good in the world. You know, I, I think, there have been times of great joy.

CRAIG

Yeah, and I think that the thing that anybody would say about you, who's known you over a number of years, you know, you are vivacious, energetic. You know, you - you - you want to be positive about things. So I don't think anybody would look at you and think that, but I do think that it's interesting, hearing that beneath that, there were moments where it was tough, and how you share that, I think.

RUTH

Yeah, I think - but, but isn’t that the, the same for everyone? So, um, this is someone that I’ve -

CRAIG

I don't think it is, actually. I mean, some people, you know, everybody has trials and tribulations and difficulties. I don't think people go through life - you've had some pretty extreme things happen to you, like getting run over to the extent you did when you were five. And there's another time where, you know, you were talking about your time in Territorial Army, and you threw yourself through a window and broke your back. [LAUGHS] I mean - and then that's an - that was an extreme experience that then, a lot of people don't have those kinds of things in their life. There's stuff to be learned from it, isn't there?

RUTH

Yeah, I, I think, I think you do always learn from that. You know, and, and don't think that there wasn't times lying in a hospital bed, sort of 20 years on from the last time you lay in a hospital bed not being able to walk again. [LAUGHS] you didn't think, ‘Bloody hell, how far have I actually come? Probably not that far’.

CRAIG

So explain to people what happened with the, with the window thing?

RUTH

Yeah, so I'd, I’d been doing, um, my officer training, and my selection was in February, and it had been snowing the night before and somebody hadn't sort of cut up the sandpit on the other side of this window frame that you’re gonna, could sort of jump headfirst through. Er, so it was like landing on concrete and I’d over-rotated. You have, you’ve kind of got to go headfirst and I, I kind of landed on the top of my spine, and it - y- I, I sort of broke my back in a couple of places.

And, um, at the time, it turned out that they didn't have a medic on base, so the closest thing we had was a psychologist that had been doing the psychological part of the selection. So, I I couldn't get up, I was trying to get up off the ground, I was trying to get off the ground and, er, they brought this guy over and he was an enormous guy who both looked and sounded like James Earl Jones. He was a Half Colonel, so like outranked us, he was like, you know, only God was his boss.

Er, and he was, he was down kind of like, trying to move my legs and stuff, going, ‘Er, is this sore?’ I'm kind of like, ‘Yeah, that's pretty sore’. ‘Is this sore?’ Like, ‘Yeah, that’s pretty sore’. I said - I'll never forget this, he said, ‘Are you sure, number 33, or are you just anticipating the pain?’ and I was like, [LAUGHS] ‘May- maybe I'm being a total wuss about this. [LAUGHTER] May- maybe this is me being a total and utter wuss’. So he got me onto my feet and sort of frogmarched me to the ambulance up a hill and the amb-

CRAIG

With a broken back

RUTH

- and the ambulance men were not chuffed, and completely immobilised me immediately, and I wasn't allowed to move from flattened and sort of straightened for six days. It took three people to logroll me to be allowed to use a bedpan. You know, like it was, it was really bad form. [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

That sounds extraordinary. I mean, I think even I know not to move somebody who's sort of landed on their neck. But you, you say, er, in your book, ‘Yes She Can’, um, you describe yourself as having around that in-incident, a cavalier disregard for your own safety. Does that sometimes extend to things that aren't physical? So, like putting yourself in situations that are putting a big toll on you, um, like being leader of a political party. It's fighting seven, um, election campaigns in a few years, that kind of - um, I mean, that seems to me like you're putting yourself in positions that are going to put huge strain on, on you.

RUTH

I think it's slightly different, I think - or it has been pointed out to me by a good friend who likes to rip the piss, that I have quite a high risk register, in that I can tolerate more risk than some other people. And I'd never seen it like that until he mentioned it a couple of years ago, and I think, you know, giving up a lovely four day a week presenter job at the BBC to try and get elected as a Tory in Glasgow, in the 2010s, takes quite a bit of risk. [LAUGHS]

[Yeah] You, you know? I think throwing your hat in the ring to become leader less than six months - actually, at the time, I think it was less than three months after being elected as a professional politician in the first place, is quite a risky move. But I, I do… I have a belief that it is better to try and fail than to not try.

CRAIG

I wonder, do you think the same now you have a child?

RUTH

I… still have a high risk register for me. I think my risk register for those around me is a lot lower, and I - that I am adjusting to the fact that, you know, I'm not a single woman anymore. It's not just me that's affected by things. And I think that - I mean, a lot of what I'm doing is about making sure that my family are looked after and, and, you know, like I say, I've - I’m, I'm doing lots of little jobs, I'm not doing one big job, and therefore my, my chief focus isn't necessarily on the individual pieces of work.

It's on making sure that I'm setting up a, a kind of platform, um, to look after my family. So if something happened like, to me, if I got hit by a bus tomorrow, they'd still have a good life. So, I, I personally, um, have never believed in sending my own children to private school. Like, that's up to every individual to make that decision. It’s not a decision that I would want to make. Um, one of the reasons for moving out of Edinburgh wasn't that the state schools are bad there. They’re not, they’re, they’re very good.

But because it's a city, because it's a very high, densely populated city, in the part of the city that I was living in that if I'd stayed there I would have remained in, most of the primary schools didn't have any grass in their playgrounds, they were concrete playgrounds. [Mm] It really mattered to me that my son had the ability and the freedom to run around in grass and, you know, and, and have the sort of childhood I had. Now, to be fair, at the age of 17 he, like me, will probably be desperate to learn to drive immediately so he can get out of a small town on the coast, which is where I grew up as well.

You know, and I was desperate to get out, er, and move to the big city, and, and that's his decision to make. But a lot of the decisions that I'm making now is about making sure, er, that he's got the best platform in life.

CRAIG

Yeah, and, it, it's interesting that that you're sort of inbuilt wisdom is that’s what's good for him at this stage, to, to go to the place that you tried to get out of, but actually there are so many advantages that you maybe didn't see you when you were younger.

RUTH

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it was, it was claustrophobic that if you, for example, or somebody that you knew that perhaps wasn't me, got into some trouble by making a lot of noise outside the old folks’ home, trying to knock conkers off the conker tree, or because it was quite boring, you started a series of wars, er, of kind of play fights between kids of different ages.

Or for example, you took crab apples off of people's crab apple tree and put- tanned them at folks’ windows and ran away for a laugh. If, for example, any of these things had happened, the entire village would tell your mum, and she would know about it before you got home. You know, that sort of suffocating-ness wasn’t brilliant.

CRAIG

No, no, I recognise that because, I mean, I remember somebody saying to me, um, and I, I will - I won't do - definitely won't do this Scottish accent again, but, ‘A kent yer faither’, was what they said to me, which was that I knew your father, which is like a very, you know, this is an environment where everybody knows everybody, I know where you are and who you are and I can mark you out, sort of thing.

RUTH

There's another element to that, though. There's a s- ah - there's a very specific element to ‘A kent yer faither’, which is, ‘I know where you come from, don't get above yourself’. [Yeah] That's what it means, [Yeah] so it's not about physically knowing your dad, it's about knowing what your background is, and don't you dare try and rise above your station.

CRAIG

If I'm honest, I hated that and wanted to get away from that. It was just like, if you wanted to do something different or whatever, that you were somehow, well, no, no, you - you've got to stay back here. And maybe I was an arrogant little tosser, it’s quite likely. [LAUGHS] But, but you know, it did feel to me like, quite limiting.

RUTH

Yeah, I, I never - like I've never yearned to not live in Scotland. Um, I've never thought that it would inhibit me from doing things. I've never... I've, I’ve never lived anywhere else, I've never wanted to live anywhere else. This is my home, and I feel of it, and I think that's one of the reasons that during the referendum, the thing that got me and so many Scots like me, really riled up was the idea that wanting to stay part of the United Kingdom, that Scotland was a part of, that it had helped build, that it had ownership over, that was part of all of our shared heritage for 300 years, made you less of a Scot.

How dare you? How absolutely dare you tell me that? You know, um, and I think that that was a, a really big part of it for a lot of pro-union Scots.

CRAIG

Look, let's talk about your time in politics. Um, and I remember the very first time I heard about you. Er, we were having a meeting and on the agenda - with the Prime Minister - and on the agenda was who was going to be Scottish Conservative leader? And I remember there was a bit of a surprise that there were actually anybody in Scotland who was Conservative at that stage, and you were described as ‘the lesbian kickboxer’, [Mm] and I wonder what you make of being reduced to that description and that -?

RUTH

Oh, that really annoyed me, and I'll tell you why it annoyed me, not because - well, one, because I'd stopped kickboxing years before, so it wasn't even true. Er, but two because it was so reductive, and it was reductive to try and make a point. So there was four people in that leadership election and every single other one of them was referred to in the papers by their job apart, from me.

So it was deputy leader Margot Fraser, transport spokesman Jackson Carlaw, er, justice convener Margaret Mitchell and lesbian kickboxer Ruth Davidson. And it was so reductive and it was so dismissive, and the thing that I wanted most, early on, was to be able to own the adjectives in front of my name. And success would look like me appearing in the paper as Tory leader Ruth Davidson. And it took a while, really did take a while, but I got there.

CRAIG

I totally - no, no, and I, and I totally get the reductive point but I - and - and it's not right and it, of course, you're right to, to flinch at it. But there's also a kind, there was a kind of thing going on in the Conservative Party at that time, there was almost a slight sort of desperation to have something that might be vaguely trendy. So I know that in their, in their world [LAUGHTER] that was somehow vaguely trendy that there was a lesbian kickboxer who would -

RUTH

Yeah, I don’t think I’ve ever been called vaguely trendy. I would certainly never refer to myself as even vaguely trendy, to be honest with you, Craig.

CRAIG

But as a Conservative [Know your limits as well as your skills] being a lesbian, you know, um, trendiness in the Conservative Party, I think is lesbian kickboxing. But um, I tot - but yeah, I totally -

RUTH

I mean, I, I think - do you know what - what was great about that actually, was, er, apart from the fact that it made my mum cry when it first turned up in the papers, er, which is never a good phone call to have. Um, but I think what was good about that was there was every single reason for the party not to choose me. Every reason, and they could have justified it to themselves that it wasn't about homophobia. I was too young, I was too green, I hadn't earned my stripes.

Er, there was every single reason not to pick me as party leader, and the fact that they did showed that actually the party had come a long way. And I think - there's a really lovely clip of me waddling on stage at a party conference as an unmarried lesbian, about to be mother, er, eight and a half months pregnant, and everybody cheers. And it's not - I'm not saying I am the most amazing thing ever, but if you think about some of the rhetoric that had been in our party about single mums, or about people, um, from other minorities, or about, um, how marriage was the, you know, was the only way forward.

Or, or being so prescriptive about people's lives, the fact that we've relaxed or chilled the fuck out of it, [LAUGHS] you know, just, you know, I think says a lot, and it says a lot actually, for David Cameron and some of the ways he, he pushed that forward, and for explaining to people that things like equal marriage wasn't about going against the grain of conservatism, but, but he believed in it because he was a Conservative.

CRAIG

And you chose, um, to stand, um, as a Conservative in Scotland at a time when it really was considered borderline socially unacceptable, um, and to be Conservative, and I think that in your first couple of elections, you know, there's one where you came fourth with five percent of the vote. That must have been pretty dispiriting.

RUTH

Um, a- actually, um, that was a success. So that, um, seat, that was a byelection, er, [Go on] in Glasgow Northeast, er, and it was the last byelection before the 2010 General, and it was supposed to be a quick up and down, six weeks, but Gordon Brown refused to call to move the writ, er, because he'd lost the seat next door to the SNP a year before.

So it ended up being five months. I had 13 Shadow Cabinet ministers. There was a dozen candidates, three of whom had been on either Big Brother or, um, or Celebrity Big Brother. We had John Smeaton who was the guy that became famous, the baggage handler for kicking the, the Glasgow airport bomber in the bollocks, standing. It was six months after the European elections where the BNP had broken through with their seats. Um, the seat I was contesting had been held by Labour for 70-something years, I think it was 78 years.

And we had… er, I think we'd got three and a half percent of the vote and come sixth at the European election, er, six months before. So holding my deposit, er, and beating out the BNP who sent Nick Griffin up, who sent activists up, they were on Question Time two weeks before the poll. So, you know, five percent could look like, awful for lots of people. One, it was the best political experience of my life, I loved that byelection, it was a riot, it was an absolute circus from start to finish.

Er, two, I learned the most of my life and three, actually not having the BNP keep their deposit, and they lost it by about 75 votes, not having them keep their deposit and not having them make a breakthrough in Scotland was so important, really important.

CRAIG

By any measure, you were incredibly successful. You really did turn the Conservative Party in Scotland around and made them a force up there again, which they, they just weren't. And I watched videos of you, um, in action, and sometimes it feels like you're rushing an enemy machine gun nest when you're in Parliament asking questions and planning to take no prisoners. And, and I think you do need to be able to do that in, in politics. At the end of my time, though, I kind of felt all the shouting, tribalism, adversarial approach is really, ultimately counterproductive. And I wonder if you look back on that at all and think that, or actually it's just rough and tumble and that's what we need?

RUTH

I mean, I think, oh, I think politics is a much harder gig than it was when I started, and I think this entrenchment is awful, because you can have strong and robust opposition, but you can still come together on issues, and the way in which legislation is made, the way in which is amended, actually you need to have a dialogue with people of different parties, you need to form alliances, you need to talk about how you do stuff and, and I'm firmly a pragmatist.

I would much rather we had a bill that was flawed but that made things a bit better, than we die on our honour and throw out the bill completely ‘cos it w- it wasn't a hundred percent perfect. You know, I, I just don't think that benefits anyone and, and actually, one of the things I'm looking forward to, um, now we’re in the House of Lords, is the fact that it's less tribal.

Don't get me wrong, like, I - you know, like you say, I, I don't ever bring a knife to a gunfight. I, I get the job of a political leader is to advance the cause and to be, you know, the point of the spear, er, in attack and to be the first line of defence, um, when defending. I get that. I get that that’s a rule and I always try to acquit myself well. But I naturally like to get things done, and you need to work with other people to get things done.

CRAIG

There was a time where you were seriously spoken about as being leader of the Conservative party, um, and -

RUTH

Yeah, never by me, can I just say? [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

No, no, no, sure but, sure but I -

RUTH

Never, ever sought it, or, or lusted after it.

CRAIG

No, but, but it was talked about a lot and it was in lots of newspaper columns. It was taken seriously, to the point where I think you had to sort of scotch the rumours and say, you didn't feel that it was something you could do. What was the logic behind that?

RUTH

‘Cos it was overshadowing everything else, ‘cos I had stuff to do up here. Er, and it's also about being honest. Like, I didn't, I didn't want - I didn't want to look as if I was flirting with it or - when I wasn't. Er, I didn't [SIGHS] want to - I also didn't want the narrative to change to, to, to being, you know, failed or passed over or something, because it wasn't something I saw.

CRAIG

Did you never - there was never a moment where you thought, ‘I would quite like to do this’?

RUTH

Well, I mean, I think - don't get me wrong, I don't think there’s anyone in politics that doesn't play fantasy cabinet and so and so would be so much better than the person that's currently in that job, etc, etc, or why doesn't the government do X, Y, or Z? I think, you know, you're in politics to try and, you know, get your ideas out there and, and make things happen.

But honestly, lucky as I have been to be behind the door at Number 10 often enough to see it in action, it is the loneliest job in the world. I have met or know, every single living ex-Prime Minister, and the current one. There are plenty of children of Prime Ministers that are still out there. Find me a single one that had a happy childhood, who was living at Number 10. A single child of any Prime Minister that had a happy time living at Number 10.

CRAIG

And why do you think that is?

RUTH

I think that it's hard, I think it's all-consuming. I think that the media lens on the spouse and family of a Prime Minister is grotesquely unfair in this country, particularly in comparison with others. And I, you know, I, I think that it's a cage.

CRAIG

How do we change that?

RUTH

You say, ‘How do we change that?’ Er, w - you know, I think you, you change it if there's not enough people that want the job. I think there's plenty of people that want the job. I'm just not one of them. [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

The other thing, the other thing that occurred to me in general, and I think it's certainly true of Prime Ministers if they stay long enough, um, but politics drives a lot of people mad, um, that you actually, literally see people who are in it and unless they find a way to navigate it, it's almost like you can see the sort of like, things that are holding them to reality getting snapped one by one, particularly if they're in senior positions.

Is that something about the people who go into it, or is it the experience of it? Or is there anything we can do to change that? And I think you're an honourable exception to this, but do you know what I mean, that there are -?

RUTH

Well, I think a- but I, but I think that I'm a different proposition in that I, you know, I didn’t I hadn’t spent 10 years, er, as a front bench minister being driven around and, you know, and, and having police escorts and, and civil servants. And remember, you know, it is different being an opposition politician in Scotland. [LAUGHS] You know, you're driving yourself to events, you're, [LAUGHS] you know, it's - was a fantastic story about Alistair Darling and it might even be true, that the day after the election in 2010, is that he, he kind of came out of his flat and got into the backseat of the car, and only then realised that there wasn't a driver for it.

He hadn't driven his car in 12 years. The old questions that local radio stations used to ask politicians when they rolled into town is what, you know, ‘What's number one in the charts? What's a pint of milk cost? What does a loaf of bread cost?’ And actually, the idea that you're listening to the chart show on a Sunday, or that, you know, when you're the Prime Minister, you're popping down to Sainsbury's for a half loaf of Danish that - 95p, you know, is, you know, it's for the birds.

CRAIG

I remember you doing a visit to a farm and you were told there was a bull with a broken penis [LAUGHTER] and you shouted, and you shouted at the assembled media, ‘Let's call him Boris’. Um, I get the impression you're not entirely comfortable with our current Prime Minister.

RUTH

I don't think that's one for this, er, this podcast, but I - [Well done] I have to say fair play, that foreign visit, you, you very kindly admitted to, it was with, it was with George Osborne, who I think, I'm not sort of divulging any secrets, did - had not previously spent a lot of time with farmyard animals, but was pretty game at shovelling, like the farmer had give- basically gave us f-pitchforks and told us to shovel a whole bunch of shit out the byre [Yeah] and George was great at it, [It was a-] and he was really good with a farmer as well.

Like, we sat down, he, he was like cracking out the whisky at 11 o'clock in the morning in the farmhouse and, er, he was game. Oh, he was - Bo- er, George was really game that day.

CRAIG

It was a creative photo opportunity, shovelling shit, yeah. [LAUGHTER] Um, so who - who would you say is -

RUTH

Oh, I’ve done a few of them, but Theresa May, er, in her ill-fated election, er, decided that he last rally in Scotland would be at a removal company, which if anybody who was in Number 10 had thought about that for a second would probably go, ‘That’s not the metaphor we want’. [LAUGHS]

CRAIG

Yeah, somebody not doing their job there. I just wanted to ask, you know, given all the experiences that we've talked about, not just in politics, but life in general, what do you think is important to teach your child?

RUTH

The two things that I, I remember very clearly, quite soon after he was born, I’d just brought him home, I was doing a night feed. I remember having a very serious conversation with him, it was about four in the morning. Er, my partner was asleep. Um, there was no lights on, like in my street. There was, it was a really starry night as well. I was in a - I had a kind of skylight, I was feeding him in bed and I remember having a very deep and meaningful conversation with him about how if he grew up to be both brave and kind, he would always be okay.

And like, I would love him to, you know, try his best and, you know, excel at things and do all these other stuff, but the two key planks for me was, ‘Son if you're brave, and if you're kind, you'll be alright’ and I would love to say that there was, you know, a look of recog- recognition on this newborn’s face but he, he started trying to eat my arm, so I'm not sure it went in, but I'm gonna keep trying to tell him that he should be brave and he should be kind.

CRAIG

And what - let's take each one of those in turn. Er, the, the braveness. Why do you think being brave is important?

RUTH

Because I think that there are times in your life where you need to do the hard thing. And you need to force yourself to do something that you know won't be popular, but that matters and is right, and I think if you don't do that hard thing, you will never really forgive yourself for it. And I think the first time you fail at that, er, or you compromise yourself in a way that you know, and you know when you're doing it, that's not acceptable, I think it washes a bit of the line away, and, and it becomes easier to keep compromising yourself.

And I don't, and I don't think that you're the - you grow into the man that you want to be, you grow into the person that you want to be, in that sense.

CRAIG

And the kindness thing, we often think about that as being kind to other people and obviously, that's massively important, but one of the things that I sort of, have learned thinking about something is sometimes being kind to yourself, forgiving yourself or letting yourself, giving yourself a bit of slack and not being judgmental, and I’m just thinking about the beginning of your conversation, about that sense of feeling that you shouldn't let people down, or you shouldn't fail, or whatever is… that can be a heavy burden sometimes, so sometimes being kind to yourself is important too.

RUTH

Yes. I, I - well, I think you're right. Um, I, I can’t probably count the number of times I've told other people that they need to give themselves a break and they need to be kind to themselves. I think it's harder to do when you're the person in, in the eye of the storm. I'm getting better at it but that's a work in progress.

CRAIG

And if there was one piece of wisdom at the end of everything that you would say, having learned everything, what would that be if you were sharing with people? What's the one thing that you feel is useful for people to, to learn, given your experiences?

RUTH

I mean, I think it is that the, that the most important person to, to kind of, not please but, but be able to kind of honour is, is yourself. I mean, it's not about - like I say, it's not about do what the boss wants or, or, or something else, like, the, the most important thing is to be able to look yourself in the eye.

CRAIG

And, and why do you think that is? Just to unpack that a bit more?

RUTH

Well, I think it's a, I think it's about self-respect, I think it's about how you're then able to teach things to, to your children, if you have them. I think it's about holding onto something, about, about having that moral compass, about having that set of values. Um, for some people it’s faith, for, for others, um, it, it’s, it’s something more elemental, but, but I think there is a core to people's being.

Er, and I think that you, you lose something of yourself when you knowingly compromise it. And I think that that's - they’re the sort of things that you, you regret and I think they're the sort of things that it’s worth holding on to.

CRAIG

And did, did that become clearer and clearer, do you think, as you were experiencing all the things you did? Or is it, is it something that's always been with you?

RUTH

Er, I think it's something that, id- idealists in their teens and 20s believe unconditionally. I think that as you get older, er, you see the world’s and see the compromises that are in it and see that not everything is black and white, and that, that there are competing pressures and there are competing values, er, and that actually, it's harder to navigate, and, and sometimes you get things wrong. Um, but I think it's something you should always aspire to hold onto.

CRAIG

Thanks to Ruth for being so frank, thoughtful, and as ever, taking the piss out of me. Her resilience and appetite for life is an inspiration. If listening to this raised any issues for you around suicide, please go to the Samaritans website for further help. Please like and subscribe to this podcast, and tell people about it. You can also find transcripts and further reading at our website: desperatelyseekingwisdom.com. Our next guest is Dr Bruce Perry, a psychiatrist who has written an amazing book with Oprah Winfrey called, What happened to you? He’s really worth hearing.

BRUCE

It's just easier to be empathic with somebody if you know their story. It's very rare that you're gonna hear a person’s story, and then look at them in the present moment and go, ‘Wow, you're just garbage’.

CRAIG

I’m Craig Oliver and this is a Creators Inc Production.