Ruth Davidson urges Theresa May to 'actually lead' and calls for an end to the infighting

Ruth Davidson has urged Theresa May to “actually lead” and warned her government it is time to get out of the “defensive crouch” it has adopted since the General Election.

The Scottish Conservative leader claimed in a hard-hitting article that it was time to “reboot” capitalism, make “behemoths” like Amazon pay a fair share of tax, and build new homes on greenbelt land.

She also warned ministers to end the infighting in Cabinet and called on them to start banging the drum for Conservatism, or face defeat to Jeremy Corbyn.

Ms Davidson, whose pro-Union stance helped her party win 13 seats in Scotland - after it took just one in 2015 - wrote: “It is not enough for government to facilitate a discussion about where next for Britain, it has to actually lead.

“The short-term, election cycle nimbyism of prohibitive planning laws needs to cease and there is no room for one-of-the-in-crowd Davos sycophancy either. At home and abroad we need to press the case for fairer markets.

“Capitalism has lifted billions out of poverty and made the world a better, safer, healthier, more comfortable place.

“It’s not working for everyone, however, and some people are enriching themselves through the kind of restrictive practices that Adam Smith warned us about two centuries ago. Nationally and internationally, capitalism needs a reboot.”

A Scottish Conservative source added that Ms Davidson, a Tory centrist, was “appalled at the defensive crouch the government in London has got into”.

The insider told The Sunday Times: “Losing a majority doesn’t mean that you don’t make the case. It means you make it twice as hard. Stop fighting among yourselves and start banging the drum for Conservatism, because if we don’t, we lose.

“Ruth is frustrated that it might seem as if Tory ministers are more concerned with briefing against each other than tackling the briefs they have been given”.

In the article for the website UnHerd, on the reform of capitalism, Ms Davidson highlighted the lack of opportunity available to many young people in post-industrial Britain.

She asked in the article: “How does a teenager living in a pit town with no pit, a steel town with no steel or a factory town where the factory closed its doors a decade ago or more, see capitalism working for them?

“Is the route for social advancement a degree, student debt, moving to London to spend more than half their take home pay on a room in a shared flat in Zone 6 and half of what’s left commuting to their stagnant-wage job every day; knowing there is precisely zero chance of saving enough to ever own their own front door?

“Or is it staying put in a community that feels like it’s being hollowed out from the inside; schoolfriends moving away for work, library and post office closures and a high street marked by the repetitive studding of charity shop, pub, bookies and empty lot – all the while watching the Rich Kids of Instagram on Channel 4 and footballers being bought and sold for more than the entire economy of a third world nation on Sky Sports News?

“Not a single person familiar with this impossible choice should be surprised at the rise of the populist right and left, of Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn, with their simple, stick-it-to-the-broken-system narrative.

‘This is what market failure piled upon social failure piled upon political failure looks like.”

She also warned against the “corporate behemoths” that have “forgotten about operating with consent”, adding: “It is not enough simply for an Amazon to bring down the cost for consumers, the public expect it to pay a fair share of taxation and grant workers a decent wage as well.

“It is not inequality that bites deepest, but injustice. People expect that the CEO of a corporation will be the highest paid person on the payroll.

“What they don’t accept is that FTSE 100 bosses are paid 174 times the average worker’s wage in this decade – compared to 13 to 44 times in 1980.”