Ruth Davidson was brought close to tears as she said that people should not be made to “feel like idiots” for following Covid rules whilst parties were held in Downing Street.
The former Scottish Conservative leader was emotional following the release of the Sue Gray report in an interview with Channel 4 News.
And Davidson, now a Peer in the House of Lords, said that she had constituents unable to visit parents in care homes, or hug a friend at a funeral, because they were following the pandemic restrictions in 2020.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Monday apologised in the House of Commons after the report stated that the gatherings at No 10 represented a “serious failure”.
It also noted that some of the gatherings are “difficult to justify”, whilst people across the UK were being asked to accept far-reaching restrictions on their lives.
Davidson told Channel 4 News: “I am upset and I’m upset because, not just because of things that myself and others that are in my close family and circle of friends missed and had to give up, but, you know, I was working in the Scottish Parliament.
“I had constituents that lost businesses, I had people that feel guilty that they didn’t go to the care home to see their parents, that they didn’t hug a friend at a funeral because they played by the rules.
“And now they look at what happened in Number 10 and they feel like idiots and they shouldn’t be made to feel like that.”
The former Scottish Conservative leader also suggested that the Prime Minister cannot recover from the scandal.
She told the broadcaster: “Boris Johnson, the Prime Minster, his colleagues and his supporters may think he can hang on but I do not think that he can recover.
“I think if you look at all the polling he has lost the support of the public, he’s lost the trust of the public and I think there’s a really big job for whoever comes next to rebuild that trust.”
Davidson insisted that it is “more important than ever” that the UK has a prime minister who leads by example.
“If you believe in the institutions of this country and I do, you don’t want to see them undermined, you don’t want to see them degraded,” she said.
“To have a fabric of a society you need to have trust in the institutions that are there to both serve us and lead people in this country and the degradation which is occurring day in daily as this drip drip drips on is going to be so hard to recover.
“And at a time where the resilience of this country is so low because for the last two years, because of the difficulties we’ve had, because of the hardships people have faced, it is more important than ever that we have a Prime Minister who leads by example, because if you’re not leading by example at a time of national crisis you’re just not leading.”
Follow STV News on WhatsApp
Scan the QR code on your mobile device for all the latest news from around the country
