Scottish Tories leader Ruth Davidson won't rule out standing as Westminster MP amid leadership speculation
She has however said she doesn't want to lead her UK-wide party
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Your support makes all the difference.Scottish Conservatives leader Ruth Davidson has left the door open to standing as an MP in Westminster, amid speculation she could one day lead the Tories.
Ms Davidson was credited with more than doubling her party’s number of MSPs in this month’s Scottish Parliament elections, taking a starring and central role in her campaign.
Her success led to some Conservatives suggesting that she should move to Westminster, potentially one day leading the party.
In an interview with Parliament’s The House magazine Ms Davidson would only rule out standing as an MP “for now”.
“I’m certainly ruling it out for now because I’ve got a pretty bloody big job. With all the new powers coming to the Scottish Parliament, MSPs have a lot more to do than backbench MPs from Scotland do now - in terms of wholly devolved health, wholly devolved justice, wholly devolved education, mostly devolved transport, large parts devolved welfare, large parts devolved taxation,” she said.
“It’s now become a bigger and much more interesting job to be an MSP than it is to be an MP from Scotland sitting on the backbenches.”
Ms Davidson earlier this month said there was “not a chance” that she would take the helm of the UK-wide party, however.
On Monday Ms Davidson announced her engagement to her long-term partner, Jennifer Wilson.
The couple announced their engagement on Twitter, with Ms Davidson posting a photo of an engagement ring.
The Scottish Tories went from 15 to 31 MSPs in this month’s elections, pushing Scottish Labour into a historically poor third place.
Ms Davidson was also personally successful in capturing the seat of Edinburgh Central, where she is now MSP.
She had been expected to have to enter parliament using the regional list system, but ultimately doubled her party's vote share and took it from fourth to first place in the constituency.
Her campaign emphasised presenting a “strong opposition” to the Scottish National Party and moving on from a second independence referendum.
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