Ruth Davidson last night brushed aside the findings of a survey that suggested the Scottish Tory leader’s approval rating has plummeted.
The poll, conducted among readers of the popular ToryHoose blog, claimed that Ms Davidson, leader for less than six months, scored an approval rating of plus 4.8 per cent, down from plus 82 per cent in the last survey.
To make matters worse for Ms Davidson, the survey found that the big gainers were Murdo Fraser, her MSP colleague whom she defeated in the leadership contest last autumn, and Liz Smith, another Conservative MSP who was Mr Fraser’s campaign manager.
The survey, seeking approval ratings for each of the party’s 15-strong Holyrood MSP group, had Mr Fraser top, with an approval rating of plus 80.4 per cent, up by more than 37 per cent. Ms Smith’s ratings were up by the same amount to more than plus 16 per cent. The ToryHoose blog backed Ms Davidson against Mr Fraser during the leadership contest.
The survey comes at an inopportune time for Ms Davidson’s leadership with the Scottish Conservative conference next week and only days after Brian Monteith, a former Tory MSP, who lambasted her in print for her U-turn which will put the Tories at Holyrood now in support of minimum pricing for alcohol after years of opposition to it.
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Mr Monteith also accused the party under Ms Davidson of no longer being Scottish, Conservative or Unionist and of taking orders from London.
Last night Ms Davidson’s aides cast doubt on the survey, saying that only 300 people had voted and that there was, they claimed, no bar to one person voting several times.
Her spokesman said: “You did not have to be a member of the Tory party to be able to vote in this survey. There could be people from other parties taking part. As far as we are concerned, we are pretty relaxed about it. It is simply not scientific.”
Ms Davidson has faced criticism for her lack of impact as leader, particularly at First Minister’s Questions .
However, she succeeded in discomfiting Alex Salmond yesterday when she tackled him over the drug abiraterone, used in Libya to treat the dying Lockerbie bomber Abdel Baset Ali al-Megrahi, which is said to cost £3,000 for a month’s supply and the use of which was rejected in Scotland for prostate cancer sufferers by the Scottish Medicines Consortium this week.
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Ms Davidson asked Mr Salmond “what possible excuse” he had for rejecting a cancer drug fund to make more medicines available. She said that 12,000 people had had their lives extended through a similar English fund and asked why he has chosen to “refuse the same opportunity to cancer sufferers in Scotland”.
She said: “The First Minister chose to find £50 million to give free prescriptions to people like himself, who can afford to pay for them. “But he is choosing not to find a more modest sum to extend and improve the lives of Scots with fatal conditions.
“Will the First Minister now make a different choice?”
Mr Salmond said the English fund was not “substantially supported” and he cited cancer charities such as Myeloma UK, Breakthrough Breast Cancer and Macmillan Cancer Support, who had said the fund did not address the root causes of why patients might be denied access to treatment.
The First Minister also quoted Pauline Latham, a Tory MP, as saying the fund in England was not working for the benefit of patients.
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He said: “This chamber did consider the question of the cancer drugs fund and paid attention to the many submissions that we received suggesting that that was not the best way forward.
“Can I suggest to her that the process we have in Scotland works effectively. Sixty per cent of the drugs resubmitted on a more reasonable cost basis after initially being turned down by the SMC are then approved”, Mr Salmond said.