'Ruth Davidson’s resignation should be seen as a clarion call to reset our attitude to public servants'

Where you set the political weather and get to say exactly what you think without any need to appease anyone or rebut anything. You’ll address it to your party chair, but it’s written for mass consumption.

The papers have been filled for days with speculation as to why Ruth Davidson “really” resigned. Was it the pressure on family life or the thought of daily disagreements with the Prime Minister? As is the fashion in this binary Britain, you have to pick a side and stick to it.

Whilst it fills column inches, the truth is really very simple and readily available. It’s in the letter and it’s worth reading again. This was a resignation which beams with humanity. Given it’s rawness, emotion and clarity surely we owe it to her, after eight years of public service, seven elections and two referendums to just accept it at face value. Must we instinctively distrust everything and everyone?

The debate over whether this was a personal versus political resignation is well trod. I offer here something different, a perspective on what we tell ourselves is a family-friendly parliament, the demands of leadership and the standing of public servants in a broken political system. I do it as someone who joined the parliament at the same time as Ruth Davidson. Like her, my political career was forged in the independence referendum, albeit with my flame burning out before hers.

The Scottish Parliament prides itself on being family friendly because it votes at 5pm most nights, yet the vast majority of MSPs with kids don’t see them Monday to Thursday. There’s no written maternity or paternity policy, no scope to take on extra staff in your absence. No official pairing arrangement to ensure your party doesn’t lose a crucial vote because you’re dilating.

When we think family, we picture children. Yet a parliament full of 40 and 50-something-year-olds knows a thing or two about caring for elderly parents. Cancer and dementia are speciality topics. Perhaps they know a bit about guilt too. Not seeing their parents enough. Relying all too heavily on siblings or friends to do the caring.

Maybe it’s just a family of two, where a fledgling relationship is constantly strained by last minute cancellations, late night media bids and Saturday morning leaflet runs. Ruth Davidson told us in her leaving speech: “In trying to be a good leader, I’ve proved a poor daughter, sister, partner and friend.” The raw emotional intelligence of that is compelling. It’s also too easy to make this solely a gender equality issue as there’s a litany of poor sons, brothers and husbands in our public life.

This is not a piece calling for you to pity your politicians. Their lives are a privileged existence. They are well fed and well paid. Their crusts earned without dirt under their nails or strains on their back. I’m just arguing that they are human and failing, to see them as that – to strip away the common humanity of man is to give them the excuse to be the emotionless robots we’re told they are.

Neither is it a particularly good advert for public life. I worry what people with an interest in and passion for politics think looking in just now. A recent poll showed that the single biggest reason people were put off standing for office was how they’d be perceived online. Anonymous and persistent online abuse has created a toxic and ugly environment. In response, politicians disengage altogether or develop the skin of a rhino to survive online. Thicker still if you’re BAME, disabled or LGBTI+.

Part of my work now at the John Smith Centre is to help diversify the types of people who go into politics. We do that by researching the barriers they face and then breaking them down with practical solutions like our pioneering Parliamentary Internship Programme. It’s not enough though to put different faces into the same old machine, ask them to work every hour god sends, making significant personal sacrifices, and expect different results.

If that is the world of a politician, consider what happens when we add the responsibilities of party leadership, and perhaps even again prime or first ministerial office.

As party leader, my working day would start with reading all the newspaper clippings and an 8am conference call before leaving the house. There would be another call around 10pm which with a stroke of luck I’d be home for. On top of your own constituency or region, you’re expected to tour the country and press the flesh, manage the party machine, make the political weather and respond to it. Be available for media bids and never miss an opportunity to be heard or make impact.

Add to the pressures of actually running the country and I’m left with nothing but respect and admiration for people like Nicola Sturgeon who have both survived and thrived in these conditions for 20 years.

If juggling family life is hard, with stark daily choices and compromises to be made, the first thing chucked over the side to keep the ship afloat is often an individual’s own personal happiness.

I was so busy for so long, I never stopped for long enough to realise just how unhappy I was.

Hear me out. Life is tough for the vast majority of people and this not a manifesto pledging candy floss and unicorns for everyone, but the general levels of happiness amongst our politicians should be a matter of our concern.

Our politicians are a complex mix of being both very powerful and vulnerable. They make laws and take decisions which affect our everyday lives, it is in our interest that they’re in finer fettle. We wouldn’t wish for a doctor to treat us in the 70th hour of their working week. Or expect empathy, decency and generosity from those who experience little of it themselves.

It’s not just their physical health either. If one in four people suffer from poor mental health in their lifetime, that’s a sizeable number of our elected representatives who are struggling.

Probably far more in percentage terms when you factor in loneliness, stress, long days and a ready supply of alcohol.

The phrase “you get the politicians you vote for” rings repeatedly in my head. On the one hand it can be instantly dismissed because in a first past the post system, the public very often vote for the least worst option. Voting for person x in order to stop person y. It’s hardly the foundations of a fruitful relationship.

Yet on the other, if we want to change the nature of our political discourse, which is increasingly harsh and polarised, we must create the space for our politicians to do things differently.

The old joke “don’t vote – it only encourages them” is only half funny when you consider that we reinforce the worst of our discourse by rewarding it time and time again with our votes. If we’re fed up of identity led politics, one that prefers soundbite to sound evidence, we have to demand it for ourselves.

In her closing remarks, Ruth Davidson made a plea and served us a reminder. The reminder was that the vast majority of politicians are good people, in it for good reason. She spoke of how grateful she was of the opportunity to serve.

Too often we forget that they are public servants first and foremost. It’s a job which can often be hugely rewarding, when you make a big difference to an individual in dire straits or indeed are part of a legislative process which transforms not just individual lives but society itself such as land reform, the smoking ban or equal marriage.

John Smith Centre research which we will publish in the coming months shows a direct correlation between age and attitudes to public service. When we think of public servants, we think of nurses first and are less likely to see politicians as public servants the younger we are. To us they are many things, but not instinctively that. It’s a cause for deep concern. Our job at the centre is to understand that properly through thorough and rigorous research and then to develop practical prescriptions in an attempt to change it.

Ruth’s plea was for respect. She said: “Without respect you cannot have understanding, and without understanding you cannot unite.”

We cannot expect our politicians to unite the country, we have to want that for ourselves. We cannot expect them to change the political discourse alone, we must demand it from them not by shouting at them but talking to and with them. They are the product of a system we have collectively built and sustained.

Our political system needs a circuit breaker and quickly. Ruth has provided her own. She said: “My party and work always came first, often at the expense of loved ones. The arrival of my son, means I now make a different choice.”

Others have suggested this is devastating for the cause of women in office – that it proves you can’t have it all. I see it differently, she’s made a choice. That’s both empowering and liberating. “I choose” is an act of strength. She’s made a greater contribution to the public life of our country than many could imagine. We should thank her for that, wish her well and redouble our efforts to ensure that those that follow don’t have to make the same number of sacrifices to serve.

Kezia Dugdale is the Director of the John Smith Centre for Public Service. Ruth Davidson sits on its board, alongside other leading figures from across the political spectrum

'Ruth Davidson’s resignation should be seen as a clarion call to reset our attitude to public servants' - Kezia Dugdale