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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: Now a poll last week suggested that the Conservatives are narrowly beating Labour for second place in Scotland with the Holyrood elections just three months away.  If correct it would be a huge turnaround for the two parties and a further sign of Labour’s fall from grace north of the border.  Well I’m joined now by the leader of the Scottish Conservatives, Ruth Davidson, she’s in Edinburgh and a very good morning to you.  Well I mentioned there the fairly rosy polls in terms of the Scottish Conservatives but presumably you are not counting any chickens.  

RUTH DAVIDSON: Well absolutely not.  I mean we’ve had four polls by four different pollsters with four different methodologies since the turn of the year.  Each and every one have shown a record high in Holyrood voting intentions for the Scottish Conservatives and that’s nice but we’ve still got 87 days to go until polls open and the other thing that all of these polls showed us is that actually there is a very big lead of the SNP over everybody else and my job is to make sure that I put forward a proper policy platform that shows that we can really hold the SNP to account, we can put forward a positive alternative future for Scotland and we will look after family finances when new tax powers come to the building behind me here.

DM: But you have said that you think you will do better in Holyrood than you have done before, so from the previous high watermark, you are talking about 20+ seats.

RUTH DAVIDSON: Well I am not going to put a ceiling on my ambition, Dermot, and you wouldn’t expect me but yes, we are a party that is on the up.  I have charge my team, my candidates, all of the people that are working with me, my activists to go out and get us the best Scottish Conservative result that we’ve ever had in the history of devolution, we’re on course to achieve that but of course that is only part of the picture.  The rest of the picture is who makes up the rest of the Scottish parliament.  I stand ready to make a strong contribution in the next parliament, I think there are lots of issues in Scotland that we need to resolve, not least the flirtation the SNP keeps continually having with a second referendum.  We had a referendum, it was in September 2014 and as long as they talk up for independence, I will speak up for the two million voters in Scotland that said no thank you, we want to remain part of the United Kingdom and we also want our two governments in Scotland to work together and not have this synthetic grudge and grievance that is continually perpetrated and perpetuated by the SNP.

DM: And thrown into this mix is the potential, some say probability, of an EU referendum in June, on June 23rd.  Where do you stand on that?  Of course the First Minister in Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon and indeed others have said well it is kind of muddying the waters if you do try to hold it then because of these May elections, it’s too soon.  Where do you stand on that?

RUTH DAVIDSON: Do you know, Scotland already has four different voting systems for the European Parliament, the Westminster Parliament, the Scottish Parliament and local authorities.  We are quite a sophisticated electorate and indeed at the last Scottish parliamentary election in 2011 we had a referendum on the same day, that was on the AV system of voting and if Nicola Sturgeon thinks that Scottish voters aren’t smart enough to be able to think of more than one thing at a time, I’ve got news for her.  It also seems to do down her argument because that was the election, when they also had the referendum, that the SNP got the majority in so you know, I think it maybe does a disservice to the voters of Scotland to think that people here can’t think of more than one thing at a time.

DM: And what do you think of the Prime Minister’s EU renegotiations?  You have more or less said that you’ll be voting to stay in whatever he got, has he done enough do you feel to satisfy the rest, the entirety of the Conservative party?
RUTH DAVIDSON: Well you’re right to say that I came out very early last summer, I went over to Brussels and made a speech about how I thought it was in Scotland’s interests to stay as part of the United Kingdom and for me I also explained that there was an on-balance approach.  This isn’t like the independence referendum for me which touched me very deeply and it touched ideas of both national identity and personal identity, I don't think anybody goes to sleep under a European flag duvet cover no matter where you live in the country and for me this just isn’t as big or as primacy of an issue for me.  However I think people at home should remember when they are casting their ballot, whether that is in June or at some other time, that this is on whether we stay part of the United Kingdom or not.  This isn’t a referendum on the Prime Minister’s negotiations per se although I am glad to see he is continuing all of his work particularly again this week, going to Poland, going to Denmark to try and keep improving the deal that we have in Europe.  We’re never going to get everything our way, we’re one member of a 28 member organisation and I think it’s naïve to suggest we’d get everything that we wanted but I do think on balance, and for me it is an on-balance decision, we’re better off in.

DM: You talk there about how important the EU is Scotland and indeed about the independence referendum, would though the SNP not have a case, as they have often said, that if Brexit is the overall result in the United Kingdom and Scotland within that voted to stay, there would be a case for another independence referendum to ultimately allow Scotland to remain within the European Union?

RUTH DAVIDSON: Dermot, there is hardly a day or a week goes by without a senior member of the SNP saying that something is an Indie Ref 2 trigger.  If I had a pound for every time somebody in their party said that I’d be a very rich lady indeed.  Everybody across Scotland knows that the United Kingdom is the member state of the European Union, it is up for individual members in our referendum where everybody’s vote counts the same, to cast that ballot as they so please and I have a sneaking suspicion that actually you won’t see too much difference on either side of the border on this one.  

DM: Yes, but you have said it there yourself haven’t you, if there were a vote to leave the European Union you’d be dragged kicking and screaming out of the European Union as well.

RUTH DAVIDSON: I didn’t say I’d be kicking and screaming, I said that for me this didn’t matter anywhere near as much as the independence referendum, that I thought it was an on-balance decision.  I think that the United Kingdom is one of the G7 largest economies in the world, it may have a short to medium term detriment to us but I think that in the longer term as an economy of our size and an economy that is growing faster than every other major economies in the world for the last few years because of the hard work of George Osborne, that of course we would be able to survive outside the European Union.  I was also tried to be recruited for the inners campaign, both when they were setting up the board for the main in campaign I had a couple of approaches and I turned them down.  I had an approach from Number Ten, sorry an approach from within the Conservative Party itself to be in the Tories for In campaign and I turned that down because I have bigger issues on my plate right now. I have 97 days until the polls open in Scotland and I know what my job is.  My job is to make sure that we return a big cohort of Conservative MSPs behind me, that we’re able to stand strong against any idea of a second referendum here in Scotland, that we can look out for the family finances of workers in Scotland when new tax powers come to the Scottish parliament and we can hold the SNP to account because for nine years I’ve been sitting in that chamber behind me and watched the official opposition, the Labour party, not lay a glove on the SNP. They are shambolic, they have not been tremendously competent, I think if something in Scotland needs to change and if the voters of Scotland choose not to change the government in Scotland then I think they should change the official opposition and I stand ready to serve.

DM: All right and can I ask you, as you describe building this compassionate, progressive brand of Conservative in Scotland and looking after the interests of working people, where does the Chancellor’s deal with companies like Google work in all that?  

RUTH DAVIDSON: Well I made a speech at the David Hulme Institute last week, a lecture series that they have, where I talked a little bit about that and I said it is one of those situations where you see or you ask companies like Google or Apple or others and they say look, we paid what HMRC asked us to, we paid within the law, we paid what we were due and you say to the government and David Cameron and George Osborne and others quite rightly say we are doing more to crack down on tax avoidance than anybody else in the past, we’re going after companies that the Labour party left alone for years and didn’t pay any taxation at all. Both of these answers are right but for people out there, it doesn’t feel right, it doesn’t feel fair, it doesn’t feel when you are looking at the right hand side of your own pay cheque and you’re seeing the money that is coming off, it doesn’t feel fair that all these multi-national conglomerates seem to be paying much less than you do so yes, I want to see big companies across this country, across all countries, paying their fair share but I don’t want to see them picking up their skirts and moving to other countries.  So I think there is a real question mark there over how we increase the fairness that people see out there and I also think, if I may expand for just a second Dermot …

DM: Okay, just a second.  

RUTH DAVIDSON: … I think it adds to the sense that we’re seeing of a disconnect between people in countries and the governments of countries as well, it makes it feel as if the governments are letting people off with things and that’s why I think you see the rise of the sort of populist movements that we’ve seen in Greece, that we’re seeing in France, that we’re seeing even with Trump in the United States and I think that it’s a real worry and a real danger and we need to give serious thought to these issues.  

DM: Okay Ms Davidson, interesting talking to you, thank you very much indeed as always.  Ruth Davidson there, leader of the Scottish Conservatives.