Red Wall Tory MP Dehenna Davison has hinted at ambitions to be a future Tory leader – but warned the abuse faced by politicians puts her off.
Davison, who was elected in the 2019 general election, admitted leading her party was something she thought about but that there were “many downsides” to being in the public eye.
In an interview with GB News, Davison also revealed she was bisexual for the first time, telling Gloria de Piero it was “no big deal”.
Asked whether she would ever like to lead the Conservative party, Davison replied: “Goodness.
“Seeing what the prime minister has gone through at the moment I’m not sure, really.
“I don’t know is the honest answer – you do think about it, of course you do... you kind of fantasise and see kind of who’s in at the moment and you think, ‘Oh my gosh maybe this is something that I could do’...but would I like to?”
Davison, who represents the seat of Bishop Auckland in County Durham, is widely seen as a rising star in her party and has won plaudits for her campaigning on one-punch assaults following the death of her father when she was a teenager.
She has cited the experience as one of the main reasons she became interested in pursuing a career in politics.
Davison said the “upside” of being party leader and prime minister was the opportunity to “shape the country” but that the erosion of personal privacy was one of the many downsides.
“It’s hard enough being a backbench MP, but the fact that you literally can’t walk down the street without being hounded by someone either good or bad, and I’m just not really sure whether that’s something that I’d really want to do and certainly I wouldn’t want that pressure put on my family,” she said.
Davison is also thought to be the first female Tory MP to publicly reveal she is bisexual.
In 2018 she married Hull councillor John Fareham but they split the following year and are now in the process of divorcing. Their relationship and their 35-year age gap was featured on Channel 4 reality show Bride and Prejudice.
She said she’s since been on dates with “a few nice girls, a few nice guys”.
“I’ve known that I’m bisexual for quite a lot of years. All my close friends and family know,” she said.
“If anyone were to explicitly ask me, I certainly wouldn’t try and hide it because I don’t think it’s anything to be ashamed of.
“The reason I haven’t done a kind of, ‘by the way, guys’ is because I don’t want being bi to be considered a big deal.”
She added: “If I did a very public kind of coming out parade, that would be me saying there’s something really unusual about this and trying to make a big deal of it when to me it’s not. It’s just part of who I am.”
Following the interview Davison tweeted that she was “really overwhelmed by the outpouring of love”.
However, she also posted an email which called for her to be deselected, to which she responded: “Someone clearly needs more rainbows in their life.”