Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson, pictured at party conference in Manchester today, insisted she was ‘not standing’ for the leadership – but stopped short of saying she never wanted the top job
Ruth Davidson today refused to rule out taking over from Theresa May today amid speculation she is being lined up as a ‘Stop Boris’ candidate.
The Scottish Tory leader insisted she was ‘not standing’ for the leadership – but stopped short of saying she never wanted the top job.
And in her speech to the Tory faithful at the conference, Ms Davidson said she has no plans to move to London but did not explicitly rule it out.
The comments came as Tory grandees warned that Mrs May must not still be in charge when the next general election comes.
Boris Johnson is facing the wrath of Tory backbenchers after his latest intervention on Brexit threatened to throw the government into fresh chaos.
MPs openly told the Foreign Secretary to ‘grow up or go’ after he drew a series of red lines for negotiations with the EU.
Mr Johnson has been criticised for manoeuvring to take over from Mrs May in the wake of her disastrous election – which saw the Tories stripped of their overall majority.
He is reported to have told friend that Mrs May cannot survive in No10 for more than another year.
But in a sign of the PM’s weakness, Mrs May dodged questions this morning about whether he was ‘unsackable’.
Scottish Tory leader Ruth Davidson was asked at a fringe event today if she would rule out ever running for the Tory leadership and if Mrs May should sack Mr Johnson.
‘I am not standing to be the leader of the party. This session is about our new MPs who have just got themselves into the House of Commons,’ she said.
‘I don’t sit in the House of Commons – let’s get back to why we are here to talk about the real issues and not the Tory psychodrama.’
Ms Davidson has overseen a surge in support for the Tories north of the border, but would need to find a Westminster seat if she wanted to lead the national party.
Edwina Currie intervened to praise the panel of young Scottish MPs including Paul Masterson and Kirstene Hair.
Ms Currie said: ‘Listening to you is hugely impressive. You don’t waffle.
‘You’re aiming to take over the government in Scotland… Could you please take over Conservative Central Office.’
Scottish Secretary David Mundell told the same fringe neither he or other Scots Tories would answer a hypothetical question about Mr Johnson as a future Tory leader.
But he added: ‘I do recall Boris Johnson once stood for rector of Edinburgh University. You can look at the result of that.’
Mr Johnson came third in the contest in 2006.
In a strongly-worded attack on the Foreign Secretary today, former deputy prime minister Lord Heseltine renewed his call for Mr Johnson to be sacked.
He said the position was ‘unsustainable’ after two recent interventions by Mr Johnson setting out his personal approach to the Brexit talks.
Lord Heseltine, a staunch Remainer cause, hinted that although Brexit was ‘likely to happen’, there was still a chance it could be halted.
Boris Johnson, pictured leaving his London home today, is facing the wrath of Tory backbenchers after his latest intervention on Brexit threatened to throw the government into fresh chaos
In an interview on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show today, Mrs May said she was sorry Tory MPs had lost their seats at the election but insisted she had ‘listened’ to the verdict of voters
He said the Tory conference in Manchester would be a ‘fully dressed but totally revealing political beauty contest’ with leadership rivals positioning themselves to replace Theresa May.
‘That is the worst sort of background for a government that ought to be concentrating, first of all, on its programme for government, and secondly on the vision as to where it should go,’ he told Sky News’ Sunday with Niall Paterson.
On Mr Johnson, Lord Heseltine said ‘we all know what he’s up to’ but said his views on Brexit were ‘quite unacceptable’.
He said Mr Johnson was appealing to ‘elderly’ voters, many of them in the Conservative Party, and ‘those elements of their personal conviction that he thinks are most likely to trigger support for him’.
‘I understand those arguments but they are phony, they are duplicitous,’ he said.
‘Look at Bombardier, what’s going on there – that’s the real world of international trade, as anybody who has spent any time in the export market fully understands.
‘Talking about a world hungry for new British exporters to suddenly come over the horizon is just talking about something that doesn’t exist.’
The peer said ‘the whole thing is unsustainable – you cannot have a government in which members of the Cabinet are voicing opinions which are not consistent, one with the other’.
He said it would ultimately be the Tory parliamentary party that decided whether Mrs May should go.
Lord Heseltine dismissed talk of Mrs May leading the Tories into the next general election.
He told BBC1’s Sunday Politics: ‘I don’t think there is any prospect of that.’