BOOKIES PUT RUTH DAVIDSON AHEAD IN LEADERSHIP RACE

Bookmakers have now installed Ruth Davidson as narrow favourite to win the Scottish Conservative leadership race.

Stan James today quoted odds of 11/10 on the 32-year-old MSP to emerge victorious on November 4, with the party’s current deputy leader Murdo Fraser now trailing narrowly at 6/5.

This is the first time that the bookmaker has put Ms Davidson in front since the leadership race began.

A campaign spokesman said: ‘Clearly there is still a long way to run and no doubt in the betting stakes things will swing back and forth between the front runners, but the fact that Ruth has closed her initial odds of 10/1 to be narrowly ahead proves that her message is getting across the length and breadth of Scotland.’

Jackson Carlaw is still an outsider at odds of 6/1 with the fourth contender to enter the race, Margaret Mitchell, quoted at 10/1.

Today [mon] Ms Davidson, the youngest of the four candidates vying for the leadership, continued her nationwide tour of members and party activists in Falkirk, Stirlingshire, and Burntisland and Freuchie in Fife.

Tomorrow [tues] she will be campaigning in the north-east.

So far Ms Davidson has secured the backing of several senior Conservatives, including Lords Forsyth and Sanderson, MSPs John Scott and John Lamont, former deputy Presiding Officer at Holyrood Murray Tosh and former MP Sir Albert McQuarrie.

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26.09.11