Ruth Davidson has said she cannot blame voters for feeling "bullied and hectored" into backing the SNP but she hoped Scotland’s “decades-long obsession” with the constitution was coming to a close.

The Scottish Tory leader said various political parties have "been at fault over time in claiming to have a monopoly on the national mood" but the modern SNP has "made this technique its own".

She said Nicola Sturgeon’s party has cowed its opponents by painting their voices as “illegitimate and phoney" because they do not share her vision of Scotland, and this technique has been “effective” for a long time.

But, speaking a week after it emerged fewer than half S2 pupils can write well, she said Scots have had enough and “the greatest rebuke against nationalism” is that it does not improve public services.

Ms Davidson was delivering a lecture to the Orwell Foundation in London, the first Conservative to do so, on the differences between nationalism and patriotism.

She was speaking ahead of the 10thanniversary on Tuesday of Alex Salmond being sworn in as First Minister as the SNP took power at Holyrood.