To be clear, this was definitely, definitely, absolutely not a thinly veiled leadership bid. But that won’t stop Ruth Davidson’s many admirers from daring to dream.

The Scottish Tory leader used a speech yesterday to sketch out her personal manifesto for education, housing, social care, immigration and tax, not just for Scotland but the whole of the UK.

It was significant because much of what she had to say was not strictly speaking Conservative policy, in fact quite the opposite.

Most notably she joined the battle for more funding for the NHS. “Here I fear I am going to stray out of my brief as a politician of a devolved parliament and instead speak for something that affects the whole United Kingdom.”

She called for