‘You have to accept her life is not her own’: Ruth Davidson and partner Jen reflect on life in politics
Being a politician is not always easy – and neither is it straightforward if you are in a relationship with one.
Jen Wilson joins her partner Baroness Davidson on Beth Rigby‘s Electoral Dysfunction podcast where she describes how her life became “quite intense” when Ruth led the Scottish Conservatives.
A caller tells the podcast that her partner is an MP and asks what they can do to “protect the sanctity of our friendships and social life locally?”
“I knew life would be different, but I had no idea quite how different it would become,” the caller adds.
In response, Jen tells the podcast: “It is definitely quite different being the partner of a politician. It’s quite intense because they aren’t 9 to 5.”
She says that when Ruth was the Scottish Tory leader from 2011 to 2019, she was “on call pretty much 24/7”.
“It definitely took lots of adjusting to when we first got together,” she said.
Jen adds: “The other thing that can be quite tricky is getting the hang of avoiding political debates with people going somewhere.
“And I think your partner’s got to maybe get used to it, kind of politely shutting down politics chatter. People come over to try and have big debates with them when you’re out and about, we’ve definitely had people not really understanding that, interrupting a couple, having a nice candlelit dinner, to talk about constituency issues or potholes or the constitution, isn’t exactly the right moment.
“So we had to kind of get the hang of that over the years. We’ve joked previously that Ruth was off duty and asked people to get in contact with her office, and it usually gently gives people the message that is not the right second.”
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Ruth also remembers it as “very full on” at the beginning.
“I think to be fair to Jen, I mean, we’d known each other for years before we got together. I was already the Tory Party leader in Scotland when we got together, so it was full on from the very beginning and the boundaries of my work were there that I had to take phone calls, there were weekends, I had to work the evenings.”
Responding to the caller, Ruth adds: “And if you have a family, you’ll have had a rhythm to that and that will have been completely interrupted, not just by four days a week in London and then coming back, but by what you have to do on the ground as an MP if she’s going to do the job well, you cannot hold on to everything that you had before.
“You have to accept that her life is not her own – she is in a life of service for the time that she is in parliament.”
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Baroness Harman, who was a Labour MP for 40 years and whose late husband Jack joined her in the Commons in 2010, says she had particular advice for “a man who is married to a woman MP”.
“And I would say to him in answer to this question, I think you should ask a different question, which is, ‘how can I support her in doing what she wants as an MP and being the very best MP she can be because she is a pioneer?'”
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