Dive into a nuanced discussion of Nicola Sturgeon's autobiography, 'Frankly,' as political experts dissect its key themes and implications. Gain valuable insights into Sturgeon's perspective on Scottish politics, leadership, and the defining moments of her career.
Explore the critical reflections and behind-the-scenes accounts that shape Sturgeon's narrative. This analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the book's impact on the political landscape.
#NicolaSturgeon #ScottishPolitics #FranklyAutobiography
Explore the critical reflections and behind-the-scenes accounts that shape Sturgeon's narrative. This analysis provides a comprehensive understanding of the book's impact on the political landscape.
#NicolaSturgeon #ScottishPolitics #FranklyAutobiography
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00:00The Steamy, a politics podcast from The Scotsman.
00:12Hello and welcome to The Steamy, The Scotsman's politics podcast. I'm Alistair Grant, The
00:17Scotsman's political editor, and there's really only one story in town in Scottish
00:20politics at the moment, and that's the publication of Nicola Sturgeon's long-awaited memoir,
00:26frankly. We're recording this on Thursday, which is the official publication date, although
00:31Waterstones have been selling the book for a few days now, actually. I bought a copy in
00:35the Prince's Street branch on Monday, ploughed my way through it to write a review, which
00:40you can read, it's on The Scotsman's website now. But did the book live up to the hype?
00:45Well to discuss that very question, I'm joined by Rachel Emery, The Scotsman's political correspondent,
00:50and by Kat Stewart, who is our education correspondent, but is also a keen politics watcher with an
00:55impeccable contact book. Rachel, I'll start with you. I mean, what did you, what did you
01:01make of the book? Yeah, I've got the book here as well. I don't think I've ever had to take
01:06notes and annotate a book since university. Yeah, wow, just hold that up again, that
01:10annotation there is, you've got a piece of paper sticking out of almost every page.
01:14Not quite every page. Overall, what did I think? I mean, there's no dragons in the books,
01:20there's only so much I can enjoy a book that doesn't have dragons in it. But in saying that,
01:25I am really enjoying reading it. It is a really interesting insight into Scottish politics
01:31over the last few years. Because as she was first minister for eight years, before that,
01:36such a huge figure in Scottish politics. So all these major news events that have affected
01:42Scotland, she has been there pretty much at the heart of all of it. So even just as a sort of a
01:47look at the history of the past few decades in Scotland, it really does do that. So that's
01:53really quite interesting there. I know there's been a lot of criticism, perhaps of them, there's
01:58been criticism for particularly from those who are allies of Alex Salmond. And Alex Salmond
02:02does feature very, very heavily in this memoir, having some criticism saying like, oh, she's
02:06trying to rewrite history, or this isn't a fair representation, or this is bias. And I do understand
02:11that. But at the same time, got to remember, that's, that's part of what a memoir is, it's a first
02:15person take, it's their own interpretation of events. And so that's just going to be what, what,
02:20what's going to happen with something like that. So I understand the criticisms of people saying it's
02:24perhaps too much on her own point of view, but that's the whole point of a memoir. So I don't think
02:29it's a very fair criticism to say that you should expect that going into reading this book, I think.
02:34What did that, what did you think, Kat?
02:36Kat Kerlin- I mean, all memoirs are works of fiction. Everybody has different memories of
02:43different events. And politicians are trying to leave a legacy, they're trying to create how they
02:50are looked at. You know, they, I saw Nicole Sturgeon speaking on Friday night, and she was talking
02:57about how this book wasn't an act of revenge, and how she wasn't looking to settle any scores with
03:03anyone. And she hasn't gone guns blazing for people that she perhaps could have. But she is pretty
03:12critical of Alex Salmond throughout. There's not a lot of light and shade to her relationship with
03:18Alex Salmond. And I think the pushback to that is pretty understandable. But I find it really
03:27frustrating. I find it frustrating on a couple of levels. One, my inner sub-editor was outraged at the
03:32use of Americanisms in the book. Right? I don't know why she's chosen to use American English
03:40to write the book. Perhaps this is maybe a hint she's not going to move to London, she's going to
03:46move to America. Maybe she is desperate for Donald Trump to pick up the book and have a read. Who knows,
03:51but that gives me absolutely batty. But I think Nicholas, Nicholas Sturgeon is an interesting character
03:58because she's such a private person. And she keeps her social circle so small. And she keeps her
04:03political circle small. And she has this trusted group where she is very judicious about what she
04:10shares. So her memoir was never going to be a particularly deep dive into her psyche. She has
04:16been revealing in certain areas, but there are loads of points in it where I just want her to say more.
04:23She talks about the death of Alex Salmond and how she thought that she'd moved on from their
04:29relationship and then she was hit by this wave of emotions. But she doesn't say what those emotions
04:33were. So I think as a reader, I just find it quite frustrating. But I'm not sure I ever expected it
04:40to be completely candid or totally revelatory. I always thought it was going to be about setting out her
04:45side of things. And that is absolutely what she's done.
04:49Yeah, I mean, I thought it contained moments of unusual candor. I think she writes of, you know,
04:55having a panic attack when she was trying to knock the independence white paper into shape.
05:00It was kind of quite a moving account. I certainly found about her, her miscarriage in early 2011,
05:06talking about how she felt deeply conflicted about the pregnancy, the impact it might have on her
05:10political career, her political role, and was later consumed by guilt when she lost the baby.
05:16Shaw stops becoming perilously close to a breakdown following her evidence to UK COVID inquiry.
05:22I don't think you don't usually get that level of sort of emotional
05:27candor, for want of a better word, in a political biography. And I think there's some revealing insights
05:32in the book, both about her early life and about her later political career,
05:37particularly that relationship with Alex Salmond. However, I totally agree with you, Cat,
05:40but I also find it a really frustrating read in other ways, and mostly relating to the controversies
05:46over her legacy, her policy platform. There's no evidence of those deleted COVID WhatsApp messages
05:52that caused so many headlines. There's no mention of the lack of succession planning, which arguably
05:56left her party in some of the mess that it's found itself in. And there's a kind of lack of proper
06:01discussion about her pledge to substantially eliminate the poverty-related attainment gap.
06:06There's not much at all on drug deaths. I don't think the Ferry's fiasco really gets a mention.
06:11And while she does go into the trans debate, which obviously dominated the
06:15last kind of months, months and years of her time in power, I think what she does say sometimes raises
06:21more questions than answers. And some of this might sound like kind of nitty gritty
06:25Scottish politics stuff, but it is quite an important element of her of her time as first minister and
06:30her legacy. And I think there's also that kind of gaping hole at the centre of the last half of the
06:34book or the last kind of section of the book because she can't really go into the police investigation.
06:39Obviously, her estranged husband, Peter Murrell, has been charged with embezzlement and there's
06:43legal restrictions. That's perhaps understandable, but it does just leave the narrative kind of
06:48incomplete. It leaves the story incomplete. But I think if you're interested in Scottish
06:53political history, recent Scottish political history, then I think you should read the book.
06:58But let's come to some of those big stories that came out of this. Rachel, one of them was Sturgeon
07:04addressing those kind of persistent rumors of a gay affair. And she's effectively saying it's nonsense,
07:10but she caused a lot of headlines because she went on to say that she's never considered sexuality,
07:14her own included, to be binary. What did you make of that?
07:18Yeah, this is quite an interesting bit. It's kind of one of the big first big headlines that we saw coming
07:22out of the back of this book here because I think it was something that a lot of people wanted to ask
07:27questions about particularly considering that her relationship with her husband has ended at this
07:32point here. So a few of the interviews she's done, various interviews on ITV and BBC and all the rest
07:38of it since in the past few days, and they have all sort of tried to probe a bit deeper into this.
07:43And she has tried to sort of say, it's not a big deal to me. This is not me putting labels on anything.
07:47This is just how I see the world sort of thing. But it's not how everybody sees the world from their own
07:53sexuality and things like that. So I think it is quite an interesting look into her life.
07:58Again, she was pressed on, are you going to be entering into a relationship with a woman? Can
08:02you see yourself in a relationship with a woman in the future? Is there anybody in your life now
08:06that we would know about? And she was quite keen to say, no, if there was, I want to keep it private,
08:12which probably does marry up to what we've seen previously. She was quite a private person when it
08:16came to her relationship with Peter Murrell, for example. But that being said, I think it opens up a lot of
08:21questions of, well, is there something happening? What's going to happen next? And
08:26she has spoken about wanting to move away from Scotland temporarily because of this goldfish bowl
08:29scrutiny. I suppose that is part of it. People want to know what is going on in her personal
08:34life moving forward. So that probably adds to the whole scrutiny that she's probably now
08:39talking about in this book. And that being said, though, of course, she's touring the book at the
08:44moment. She's going to go into the book festival very shortly as we're recording this podcast,
08:49she's going to the book festival, where there'll be hundreds, I'd imagine, trying to speak to her,
08:55take photographs with her and whatnot. And she will take photographs. She's well known for doing
09:00that with the crowds who are fans of hers. So interesting that we've got that as well. And
09:04then we're trying to sort of marry up with this, this sort of idea that she's wanting to step away
09:08from the limelight and trying to move away from that and she's doing politics. It's quite interesting
09:12balance there that she's trying to strike at the moment. I'm not sure which one will win out.
09:16Yeah, Kat, what did you make of some of those headlines? And also the stuff about her
09:22her miscarriage and the emotional account, I think, of the toll taken by the police investigation and
09:27her arrest. She was obviously cleared as a suspect back in March.
09:30When you mentioned that she can't really go into the details around or the sort of deeper details
09:37around the police investigation and the situation with her husband. I mean, a cynic might say that this
09:42is perfect timing for the book because she has a get out of jail free card of saying that for
09:47contempt reasons, she can't talk about it. And that has been one of the questions around this book
09:52is the timing. Why now when she's still a sitting MSP? Because I find some of the discussion around
09:58the book quite interesting with regards to her talking about political decisions and the rise of reform.
10:06She is still a sitting MSP. She is still influential within the party. And there's been some discussion
10:12around this book as though she's already left politics. And she hasn't. So I think that's
10:16that's quite an interesting tension. I did. I mean, Al, you've made me sort of reconsider my position
10:24here. Maybe I have been a little bit too harsh with regards to the details because her, some of the
10:30the lines when she's talking about her miscarriage were almost painfully intimate. I think when she
10:37writes about being on the floor when she was near having a breakdown, I can't really think about any
10:44other politicians who would perhaps have gone into that level of detail. But she is extremely judicious
10:51in what she chooses to talk about and what she holds back. And I think the lines about her sexuality are
10:57quite interesting because she has marched in pride marches. She has been a figurehead for gender
11:04recognition reform. She has talked about supporting gay rights. And we have, you know, we still have a
11:12climate where people are afraid to be themselves, to talk about their sexuality. And I think there are
11:19people who would have wanted Nicola Sturgeon to be a bit more forthright on that and to be a bit more
11:24open and a bit more honest. But again, this is about creating her legacy. So again, Al, when you're
11:30talking about the nitty gritty of politics, I mean, these aren't really nitty gritty issues. These are
11:34massive issues that affect people's day to day lives and people want answers. And again, I think a lot of
11:41the discussion around the book this week has been people expecting to hear an apology almost for some
11:49decisions that were made. I think for gender critical feminists and people who were frustrated or let
11:56down or feeling the impact of the way that the gender recognition reform debate was conducted in
12:03Scotland have looked at this book hoping for some kind of salve or some kind of apology that they're
12:09not going to get because Nicola Sturgeon is still bullish on the positions that she took there. So I think it
12:14is a book that is going to leave a lot of people unsatisfied.
12:19Yeah, definitely. I think particularly on the on that kind of gender issue because although she
12:23talks about how she perhaps wishes she'd put a pause on the legislation, it's clear that her position
12:30hasn't really changed at all. And her critics will not be happy with that. Rachel, you obviously
12:35mentioned Alex Salmond and his many mentions in this book. And I think there's some fascinating stuff
12:41about her relationship with Alex Salmond, not just in the chapter that's devoted to him, but also
12:45earlier in the book, when she's talking about various exchanges they had. For example, she makes
12:51a claim that he didn't really read the independence white paper, wasn't really involved in it, other
12:56than to kind of perhaps push the oil figures further than she was comfortable with. This is again, this
13:03is her account of it. She also makes when she's talking about the kind of allegations that Alex Salmond
13:10face, she makes the eyebrow raising suggestion that Salmond may have leaked the details of an
13:16investigation to allegations of sexual misconduct against him in order to paint himself as a victim.
13:21And that's been furiously rejected by his allies. I should also say the journalist who broke the
13:25story, David Clegg, has called that theory not credible. I think when you think through it,
13:30it does seem not credible. But what did you make of this? It's quite an extraordinary thing to claim.
13:36Yeah, if there's one big sort of theme throughout this book, it is Alex Salmond. There is a lot on
13:42him in this book. What is quite interesting, though, is we know that relationship broke down,
13:47we know that they became political enemies, I think is how Nicola Sturgeon has put it in interviews this
13:52week. But even when we go to the chapters where they are in partnership, they are working together as
14:00first minister and deputy first minister, and as leaders in the party, sort of the glory days,
14:06if you want to sort of put it that way. Even then, some of the reflections that we're seeing from Nicola
14:10Sturgeon towards Alex Salmond is a bit critical, like you were saying about the independence white paper,
14:16for example, and some of the other things she's saying that she felt frustration at Alex Salmond at
14:21these points. And so that's quite interesting looking back, because I think we think of that period of time
14:25between the two of them is a very rosy relationship that worked really well. And she's now sort of
14:30trying to say, well, maybe I wasn't very happy with this, maybe this wasn't how it should have gone.
14:35Alex Salmond perhaps didn't do this correctly or the way I thought he should have done. So that I think
14:39is quite interesting, the fact that she's going back and perhaps expressing things that she wasn't
14:44happy about when we thought the relationship was a good relationship between her and Alex Salmond.
14:48So that in itself is very, very interesting. The leak one is quite an interesting one, because of course
14:55Alex Salmond has died and so therefore cannot give his side of this view, this story, and also cannot
15:02defend some of the allegations that have been put to him here. That being said, plenty of his allies
15:07are having a say instead. So particularly Kenny McCaskill, who is now the successor as leader of the Alaba
15:13party, Alex Neil and Joia Cherry as well, they are also very much trying to speak on his behalf now
15:21against the claims that are being put forward in this book. And when it comes to what's going to
15:26happen next for the SNP, this isn't going to go away. We certainly look at Joia Cherry, for example,
15:31saying that she's wanting to now bring out our own book that's perhaps going to clear Alex Salmond's name
15:35in all of this. So we know that this feud between the two is not going to go away, even once both have
15:42now left or are going to have left frontline politics. So that's going to rumble on and rumble
15:47on, and it depends on how the SNP deals with that. Does the SNP sort of draw a line in the sand at the
15:532026 election and say, well, that was the previous generation of the SNP and we're now moving forward?
15:57Or does it become consumed by this infighting between the sort of the Sturgeon faction and the Salmond
16:03faction, if you want to put it that way? So it's an interesting balance that the SNP needs to play,
16:08and perhaps it would be better for the party if 2026 was a line drawn in the sand and it's like,
16:15well, now those two are the previous generation of nationalists and we're now moving forward into
16:20the new SNP era. That's perhaps what the party would need to focus on to make sure it doesn't get
16:25consumed by this breakdown. What did you think about, oh, sorry, on your go, Kat?
16:29The relationship between Salmond and Sturgeon is the most fascinating part of the book,
16:34because I think there was a public perception that they had this unproblematic power couple dynamic,
16:41and when they had their grand falling out, this was a shock to everybody. And you wonder whether
16:49Salmond hadn't died when he did, whether that relationship would ever have been repaired,
16:53but reading the nature of it behind the scenes, it seems unlikely and it seems more likely that
17:00there was always going to be this falling out because she talks about the shift from her being
17:07the mentee to becoming a politician in her own right, standing on her own two feet, to having
17:13her own views. And Salmond not being able to cope with that transition, he sort of liked the dynamic
17:20where he was the alpha male and she was following in his footsteps. And there's loads of fascinating
17:26insights. I mean, the main one that's been discussed has been the leaking of the document
17:33around the investigation into sexual events allegations about him, but there's loads of
17:38interesting snippets in the book. There's one where there was a mini cash for access scandal years ago
17:46that involved Hamza Yusuf, bless him, who there was an auction where the prize was lunch in the parliament
17:55with Salmond and Sturgeon, which is interesting because of course our own First Minister and Deputy
18:01First Minister were just this year auctioned off as well and no such cataracts scandal emerged. But
18:10it just became really problematic and Sturgeon talks about how she didn't like Salmond's handling of that.
18:18There was another incident where she wanted to apologise and Salmond was standing up for
18:25in the debating chamber and she talks about sitting there listening to him, thinking this is the wrong
18:30thing to do. I'm really uncomfortable. I don't want to be putting these lines forward.
18:34And she makes quite a big deal about the fact that she decided to give an apology and got admiration
18:43and praise for that. And she sort of makes out that that's how she chose to leave the party, was to acknowledge
18:50mistakes when they happened. I'm not really sure that's what played out in effect. Yeah, I just I
18:55thought that was an absolutely fascinating part of the book, the running tension between the two of
18:59them. And of course, it's completely one sided. We'll never really get the other side of that story.
19:05But yeah, I thought that was one of the main themes of the book that was most interesting.
19:09Yeah, I thought the other interesting bit was when she's talking about how she was never
19:15comfortable with what she calls the rockstar mania around her when she in the kind of early days for
19:19time as first minister, we also saw those extraordinary scenes when she was addressing
19:23these huge crowds and crowds in the hydro there was a bit SNP manifesto was just a huge picture of
19:30her with I think the word reelect. And she sort of says that she was she was uncomfortable with some
19:34of this, you know, kind of cult of personality for want of a better term. But she didn't do anything to
19:39to stop it. She didn't do anything to change that focus. And she kind of admits that in the book that
19:45she was an electoral asset in a way. But I guess part of the problem with the SNP was that they've
19:51relied on these big figures, people like Alex Salmond, people like Nicola Sturgeon, they put them up on
19:56a pedestal. In fact, Joanna Cherry was on Matt Ford's political party show at the Edinburgh Fringe
20:02festival making a point similar to this. And the SNP is kind of focused so much on these individuals,
20:11these big leaders, maybe at the expense of other things. What did you think about her kind of
20:17reckoning with some of that legacy, Rachel? Rachel Salmond- Yeah, this is very interesting.
20:20On a sort of a personal level, I think I can understand sort of this. She's saying in the book that
20:27she was actually a very shy and very anxious person when going to these events. And I think you can
20:32kind of understand that. I mean, I know sometimes my friends, for example, will watch, listen to this
20:36podcast or watch the video that we're doing right now and say, oh, my God, you look so confident.
20:40And in the background, like, oh, my God, I'm absolutely not. So I can kind of understand on a much smaller
20:45scale how she probably felt going into these big things and feeling nervous and feeling the worries,
20:50but maybe coming across like she wasn't. That being said, if she really was that nervous and frightened,
20:57then we probably wouldn't have seen her doing so many television interviews and TV debates.
21:01And as you were saying, the crowds at the Glasgow Hydro, for example, as well.
21:06So that in itself is quite an interesting look at things. I think it also does, again, play into the
21:10whole, what does she do next? And she's saying that she wants to retreat from the goldfish bowl
21:15scrutiny at the same time as releasing a book here. But what is quite interesting, I think a lot of it
21:20is her trying to portray what it's like to be a female politician in power. Because so often it's men who are in
21:28power, and we hear the memoirs of the men who are in power. Now, there'll be a lot of people,
21:32I know that there's a lot of people who disagree with her views on certain things who are women,
21:36who have taken a bit of umbrage to this sort of line in her book in the past few days. But I think
21:42it is quite interesting. She frequently brings up how she feels that it was more difficult because she
21:49was a woman in politics, or how things are more challenging, or how she was scrutinised differently
21:54than a man would have been in the book. So while Alex Salmond is the main running theme in this book,
21:59I think the second running theme is how it is to be a woman in politics and her reflections on that.
22:04She does go into quite a lot of detail, not a lot of detail, but she does reflect on it quite
22:08consistently throughout the book, which I think is quite an interesting thing. I know there are plenty
22:12of people, particularly on the gender critical side, who are, who have criticised that line, that line
22:18in the book in the past few days. But I think that was quite interesting, because we don't often have
22:23sort of female figures in that level of politics. It's interesting to see the reflections there
22:28that she has seen between her and men in politics.
22:31Alex Salmond- Cat, do you think the book lived up to its title? It's obviously called
22:36Frankly. That's quite a bold thing to call your memoir. I mean, it's obviously a kind of play in
22:40words in some ways. But do you think it lived up to that? I mean, my own opinion is that only partly,
22:47if, you know, in some ways yes, in some ways not.
22:50I think Nicola Sturgeon doesn't have the kind of personality that lends itself to complete candour.
22:57She is a savvy politician, and this book is very political, where she could be absolutely
23:03explicit about the real issues that people want to know about. She catches everything in very
23:10careful terms. You read it, you think she said one thing, you read it again, you're not quite too sure.
23:15So she has been more open about certain issues than I was expecting. She has been judicious about the
23:24issues I expected her to be judicious about. I think anyone who was waiting for an absolutely huge
23:31bombshell revelation was going to be waiting for a very long time. It's frank. It's not frank. It's
23:38exactly what I think we could have expected. What do you think, Rachel?
23:42Yes, I think the reaction this book is going to be getting is going to be very much based on what
23:50you think of Nicola Sturgeon in the first place. I feel that those who are huge fans of Nicola Sturgeon,
23:56the ones who are going to go and see her at the book festival today, for example, they are probably
24:00going to love this book, think it's great and think that it has been open and honest insight into her life.
24:04Those who dislike her and dislike her politics are going to criticise the book and review it badly.
24:11And I think unfortunately, given it's so close to her political career, as you were both saying,
24:18she is still in MSP, she is still in Hollywood for another wee while yet to go. I think that political opinions
24:25of her are probably going to cloud how well or not this book is received by the public. It's very much going to
24:31based on what are the politics and what politics do we agree with as opposed to the quality or what
24:35the content of this book as such.
24:37And we should probably touch on as well because, I mean, I think this was mentioned, she's still a politician,
24:44still an MSP, but this obviously, this book is being released at a time when the parties are sort of
24:50beginning to gear up for the Holyrood election next year. Just by the nature of a memoir like this,
24:56it's bringing up lots of issues that are painful for the SNP that have been extremely divisive.
25:03I mean, in terms of the SNP's current standing cat and in terms of the next election and John
25:08Swinney's leadership, this isn't exactly helpful, is it, to start going into all this stuff again,
25:12reopening some of these wounds?
25:14I think the gender recognition reform issues are particularly painful for the SNP and they are not
25:22going away and the government doesn't really seem to have a handle on how to deal with that. We're
25:28still waiting for guidance for schools as education correspondent. I'm on the edge of my seat waiting
25:33for that, so that's a big issue. Nicola Sturgeon was quite critical yesterday of John Swinney. She was
25:41interviewed by Jane Garvey on Times Radio and she was talking about the rise of reform and she wasn't
25:48explicit in her criticism but she did say that she thinks that the rise of reform UK is going to be
25:55more harmful for Labour but is going to be harmful for the SNP and that the party isn't doing enough to
26:01get out ahead of reform UK. Now again, she is a sitting MSP, she is influential, the rise of reform
26:07is as much a problem for her as anybody else. Yes, she's leaving next May but she will be campaigning,
26:14she will be part of the push for the next election. So I think that is particularly unhelpful. It's not
26:23just the content of the book, it's not just the headlines that have come out of the book but she
26:28is being perhaps more frank in interviews than we would have expected and that is going to be a headache
26:35for the SNP to deal with as well. What do you think Rachel? Yeah, as I was saying earlier in the
26:41podcast, the SNP probably does need to try and draw a line in the sand in 2026 and move on. There's a lot
26:47of people in the SNP standing down from Holyrood at the next election, some very big names and so
26:55I think there'll be a huge new cohort. In regards of whether the SNP is the largest party or not in this
27:02election, there will be a huge new cohort of SNP MSPs in Holyrood. So changing picture, changing face
27:09of the party overall and I think that's probably what the party is to focus on is moving forward and
27:15moving beyond sort of the old winds as Kat was saying there but move beyond the old winds.
27:20And what do we think is next for Nicola Sturgeon herself? I mean I was quite struck in the
27:26memoir, the way she talks about, I mean I was just kind of flicking through the pages trying to
27:30find this just in case you saw that I was a bit distracted there but she talks about you know
27:35in the chapter called The End when she's talking about the future she says that you know as I
27:39approached my 53rd birthday I was starting to worry that I didn't really know who Nicola the person was
27:44and that if I waited much longer it may become too late for me to find out. There's a real sense that
27:49she's kind of devoted her entire life to politics and is now coming to the end of that and doesn't
27:55really know who she is. There's not really a sense that I mean we obviously know she loves books,
28:00she loves literature, she loves reading but other than that we don't really get any sense of her
28:04hinterland about what she's actually interested in, what her kind of passions are outside of politics
28:11and it seems like in some ways she's only just getting round to finding out herself.
28:15Nicola Sturgeon Yeah sorry yeah
28:20my apologies. I think it's a sort of similar thing when you see professional athletes for example
28:26they have to get into that career so young and dedicate so much of their life to it and then
28:31suddenly when they retire it's like what do I do now there's still so much my life left to live and
28:36I've not got anything else to do that's not professional athletics for example so yeah it's kind of a
28:41similar thing and I suppose maybe she'll have to look at other people who have had careers that have
28:45overtaken their entire life and what to do afterwards so there's really loads of people that she can take
28:49advice from on that one I find it quite interesting I'm so sorry about my thoughts everybody my first
28:57run out on the podcast and I can barely speak it's brilliant I'll be better next time I promise
29:03it's interesting that it felt like a few years ago somebody around Nicola Sturgeon has decided right let's
29:09make your thing books as if that was a really quirky unusual personality trait when in fact a great number
29:17of us not all dragons Rachel but a great number of us do really like reading books and I have absolutely
29:24no doubt in my mind that Nicola Sturgeon adores a book and is genuinely her favourite thing in the world
29:29but it does feel like it was a branding issue that was maybe taken a little bit too far and now the only
29:36thing that we know about Nicola Sturgeon is that she really likes books and she's really interested in
29:40politics so I'm not really sure what she'll go on to do next but just to return to a theme that we were
29:47talking about before there is an absolute double standard in the way that male and female politicians
29:53are treated you see it with Boris Johnson you've seen it this week with Kate Forbes I mean the fact
29:59that performers at a fringe venue were having to have a safe space away from Kate Forbes because we're
30:05gender critical views when Anna Sarwar has said very similar things was in that same venue there was no
30:12need for protection from him Kate Forbes is pilloried for her religious views when we know that several
30:19of the male MSPs have very similar religious views and Nicola Sturgeon makes the point that a female
30:26politician would never get away with the conduct that Boris Johnson got away with she's absolutely right
30:31and it's been the same this week with Nicola Sturgeon being criticized for wanting to move to London
30:36Alex said I love being in London he was always down in London eating his caviar and coughing his
30:40champagne nobody thought anything about it Scotland's two most prominent nationalists love being in London
30:46well you know take what you want from that but I think she is right to want to step back I think the
30:53SNP needs her to step back because while she's still a prominent figure in Scottish civic life they're never
31:00going to move on from her I think she'll move down south maybe she'll try and move to America as I
31:07say and take her American punctuation with her who knows I mean it is a huge question and a really
31:13interesting one yeah and I don't blame her for wanting to wanting to move to London I think whatever
31:19you think about Nicola Sturgeon whatever you think about her politics she has the focus of so much
31:23scrutiny in Scotland I mean you can just see with the reaction to this memoir how much chat there's been on
31:28social media how many people have pretty much decided their stance on it without reading it apparently
31:35and I mean it's just kind of and like you say Alex Diamond also also loved London and but I mean
31:41there's so many other things we could talk about this book but I'm conscious that we don't want this
31:45podcast to go on and on and on as I say I don't think there's many political memoirs that get the kind
31:50of coverage that this one got even papers that are extremely hostile to Nicola Sturgeon splashed on
31:55stories relating to it for consecutive days on end there's been high profile interviews I'm just
32:01about to head to the launch event at the Edinburgh book festival and she's going to be talking to
32:04journalists after that as well and I think it just goes to show that wherever your views are Nicola
32:09Sturgeon whatever your own politics are she's still absolutely box office in a way that so few
32:14politicians are she kind of straddles that line between politician and celebrity that frankly other
32:20politicians other politicians just don't have and remember we talked about this before in the podcast
32:25people often make comment like these people go to her events for example her events with Val
32:30McDermid and she gets a great reception there and of course you know that's her fandom that's her
32:34fans of course she's going to get a great reception there and that is completely true but John Swinney
32:39would never go to one of these events and have fans awaiting his every word and wanting selfies with
32:44him it's a very particular kind of politician that gets that Nicola Sturgeon's not the only one there's
32:50other politicians that have that Boris Johnson had his own charisma that made him kind of magnetic to
32:56to some people but I think it's just it's a fascinating element of her of her legacy but oh sorry on you go
33:04the last words no sorry no I absolutely yeah I think that's absolutely right Al and I am
33:12interviewing Nicola Sturgeon and Boris Johnson at the Usher Hall in the next few weeks and I think
33:19it's going to be really interesting to see what the audiences are like what the receptions are like
33:23and I'm going to ask them both about each other and see what they have to say but they are the kind of
33:28politicians who have that star quality that we don't often get that I'm sure John Swinney would
33:34love to have but perhaps it's time for Scottish politics to have a bit of a break from personality
33:40politics and go back to just business as usual because if there's one thing that's going to be
33:47fighting back on the rise of reform and having tangible action about the rise of reform is policies
33:51that make people's lives a little bit better and it feels like we've been lacking back in Scottish
33:56politics for quite a long time yeah and I don't have the quote at hand but I think there is a moment
34:01where she's talking about her independence strategy where she basically says that she let the kind of
34:05snappy her snappy communication get in the way of an overall policy or something similar to that and I
34:12think maybe some people would say that that happened in on more issues than just independence but what did
34:18you make of the book feel free to get in touch let us know you can find our contact details on the
34:23Scotsman's website where you can also find reams of coverage about Nicola Sturgeon's memoir and lots of
34:28other great journalism why not consider subscribing you won't regret it we'll be back at the same time
34:34next week but until then thank you very much for joining us The Steamy a politics podcast from the Scotsman
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