'I'll skinny dip in Loch Ness': Pre-election promise back to haunt Ruth Davidson

As the UK election results unfold, people are reminding former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson of a pre-election promise she made that she just might be regretting.

Former leader of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson at an election rally in Edinburgh on the last day of the General Election campaign trail.

Former leader of the Scottish Conservatives Ruth Davidson at an election rally in Edinburgh on the last day of the General Election campaign trail. Source: AAP

Former Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson is being reminded of a wager she made before the election when she promised to "strip naked on the banks of Loch Ness", if the Scottish National Party (SNP) manage to win 50 seats at the general election.

The SNP, which won 35 seats in 2017, has only exceeded 50 seats once before in 2015 when they won 56 seats.
To reach 50, the SNP would have to take at least 15 seats from the Lib Dems, the Conservatives and Labour.

Earlier this week, Ms Davidson said she did not rate the chances of the SNP achieving great electoral success in winning 50 seats.

"I will happily wager to strip naked on the banks of Loch Ness and subject myself to a Hogmanay wild swimming session should such a result occur, safe in the knowledge that my modesty (and others' eyeballs) will remain unmolested," she said in a piece published in The Telegraph.

But Ms Davidson is now being reminded she may need to deliver on her vow.

An from the BBC has the SNP winning 55 of the 59 seats in Scotland.

Outlander actor Sam Heughan joked about the cold temperatures of the waters.

"Ooooh looks cold out there," he said on Twitter.
Film director Jon S. Baird said he viewed it as a contest between Ms Davidson and the mythical Loch Ness monster

"Loch Ness Monster v Ruth Davidson on Hogmanay. Come on Nessie," he said in a post on Twitter.
Ms Davidson's colleague Murdo Fraser said he expected her to deliver on her promise.

"She'll do it," he said on STV News.
Ms Davidson said she will be waiting for the final results before making her move.

"Have spoken to exit poll project members about Scotland methodology," she wrote on Twitter.

"They sampled a high number of voters, but only in certain seats, and then extrapolated those results across the rest."
After nearly eight years in the role, Ms Davidson stepped down as leader of the Scottish Conservative party in August, citing “the conflict” she felt over Brexit and her wish to spend more time with family.  

Ms Davidson said she may return to politics once her one-year-old is older.

"It may well be that my time in politics doesn’t come again until we’re in opposition," she said in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph’s Stella magazine.

"I’ve probably got more experience than anyone in the party on how to lead from opposition."



Ms Davidson has been a strident critic of Brexit, which is unpopular in Scotland despite Boris Johnson extolling the benefits for Scottish voters.

The former Scottish Conservative Party leader said her experience of coming out as gay to her family in her mid-twenties, and then facing homophobic abuse as a politician has been distressing.

"I didn’t know for ages, which is surprising, looking back. I came out to one member of my very close family, it didn’t go well, so I didn’t come out to the rest for two years," she said.

She said she received up to 1,000 vitriolic tweets a day when she was party leader.

"It wears you down. I’ve had a lot of ‘string her up by a lamppost’ type stuff; ‘unionists, turncoats, traitors’," she said.

"And I had an incident where someone got my phone number and made threats. It turned out not to be that sinister, but I didn’t know that when I was being told they wanted to burn all gays."


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4 min read
Published 13 December 2019 5:35pm
Updated 13 December 2019 10:18pm
Source: SBS News

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