THE SNP has attacked Ruth Davidson on the first day of the Holyrood election campaign – claiming she has “she has let down the people of Scotland at every turn” during her time in parliament.

Ms Davidson, the former Scottish Conservative leader, is not standing for re-election to Holyrood and will instead take up a place in the House of Lords.

At the last First Minister’s Questions before the election yesterday, Nicola Sturgeon was given a ticking off by the presiding officer for repeatedly bringing up Ms Davidson’s new job at Westminster with the presiding officer warning he would “rather that it was not so personal”.

The SNP has highlighted a string of occasions it claims Ms Davidson has let down Scottish voters including backing the two-child cap and controversial rape clause, suggesting she has refused to fight for Scotland’s place in the single market and customs union following Brexit and voted against mitigating the bedroom tax and free prescription charges in Scotland.

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The party has also claimed Ms Davidson has failed Scots by opposing an extension to the Universal Credit uplift and has said she refused to protect Scotland’s NHS from a US trade deal.

SNP candidate for Mid Fife and Glenrothes, Jenny Gilruth, said: “Ruth Davidson’s time with Boris Johnson’s Tories has been defined by a litany of u-turns and failures. She will leave those in her wake as she heads off for the unelected, undemocratic and unaccountable House of Lords.

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“For the entirety of the 10 years she has been in the Scottish Parliament she has let down the people of Scotland at every turn, from prescriptions charges to dragging Scotland out of the EU.

“Ruth Davidson was presented as a change from the Tories of old, but in reality, she was just another representative in Scotland of a Westminster Tory establishment that all too often lived up to its tag of the 'nasty party', by failing the most vulnerable in our society. She supported the dreadful bedroom tax, opposed an extension to the uplift to Universal Credit and backed the abhorrent rape clause and two-child cap.”

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Ms Gilruth added: “Scotland’s exit from the EU has demonstrated how Ruth Davidson and the rest of the Scottish Tories are inept at standing up to Boris Johnson as they were posted missing when Scotland’s fishing, food industry and exporters were sold down the river and have had their industries devastated as a result of the hardest of Tory Brexits.

“At this election, which Ruth Davidson is ducking out of, the people of Scotland will have a choice, to put their future in their own hands with a post-pandemic referendum or into the hands of Boris Johnson.”

In her final speech in Holyrood yesterday, Ms Davidson said: “For my part, I will miss this place.

"When I announced in August 2019 that I was standing down as leader and would not seek re-election, I always knew that leaving would be a wrench. It is so consuming.

“It is not just the sitting days, but everything else that goes along with them that is so absorbing, that makes it hard to carve out proper time for the ones you love.”

A Scottish Conservative spokesman said: "We are the only party with the strength and determination across Scotland to stand up the sleaze-infested SNP and block their damaging obsession of inflicting another divisive referendum on Scots."