Nicola Sturgeon reveals ‘rape taunts' and miscarriage abuse after memoir published
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NICOLA Sturgeon yesterday told how she has faced rape taunts and abuse about her miscarriage since revealing her memoir this week.
The former First Minister blamed critics of her gender self-ID push as she spoke to an audience today at her official book launch in Edinburgh.
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Nicola Sturgeon revealed the vile abuse she received over her miscarriage
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Ms Sturgeon with former Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark
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Her memoir Frankly contains deeply personal revelations and bombshells from her political career
Credit: John Kirkby
Ms Sturgeon also said some of her fiercest critics on the trans issues had "other prejudices', repeating the claim they were like supporters of US President Donald Trump, Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, and leader of Turkey Recip Erdogan.
Speaking to former Newsnight presenter Kirsty Wark at the Edinburgh Book Festival, the ex-SNP leader attacked critics of her doomed gender self-ID push.
Branding the debate 'toxic', Ms Sturgeon said: "These are people who call themselves feminists, standing up for women's rights saying things about me, such as when I described my miscarriage experience the other day, 'I haven't laughed as much in years', accusing me of making it up, people saying they hope I am raped in a toilet.
'These are the kinds of things that go in both directions."
Speaking afterwards she said had not spoken to cops about the social media posts but said the scale of abuse directed towards women in particular made her 'deeply concerned' for democracy.
And she blasted the abuse she received over her backing of trans rights, adding: 'I've been vilified and received some awful abuse.'
During the event she also rolled her eyes at the mention of fierce anti-self ID critic and former SNP MP, Joanna Cherry KC - before taking several fawning questions from the audience about how good she was as First Minister.
Ms Sturgeon also defiantly doubled down on her backing of the controversial gender reform bid, but said she wished she had found a 'more collegiate way forward'.
She added: 'My life would be easier if I just gave in on this issue and said yeah I got it wrong and we should never try to make life better for the trans community.
'But I will never - to make my own life easier - betray a stigmatised minority, because that's not why I came into politics.'
Five of the biggest BOMBSHELL moments from Nicola Sturgeon's new memoir
And in a fresh swipe at her gender critics and repeating a 2023 claim where she said feminist voices against trans rights were 'deeply misogynist, often homophobic, possibly some of them racist as well', she said: 'I defy anybody to say that there are not people, supporters of Trump, Putin or Erdogan or here people like supporters of Farage who fall into these categories and have chosen to take on this issue.
'It is the soft underbelly of other prejudice and I find it really hard to believe that even people who passionately disagree with me can't see that.'
Ms Sturgeon's memoir, titled Frankly, has already sparked fury from allies of her late mentor Alex Salmond.
In it, she accuses the former first minister of not reading the SNP's blueprint for indy, the White Paper, of being opposed to gay marriage, and of potentially leaking sexual misconduct claims against himself.
This led to Salmond allies including Alba Party leader Kenny MacAskill and others accusing her of 'rewriting history' and 'twisting the knife' into Mr Salmond.
But Ms Sturgeon rejected this, saying: 'I am not rewriting history.
'It is my story in my words and I am pretty glad I have done it.'
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And don't get him started on Ed Miliband. 'Imagine heating this house with a heat pump… None of this lot from Islington has been to the country.' Bull was born in 1969, in Farnborough hospital, Kent (as was Nigel Farage, five years earlier). The family moved to Suffolk when he was four. Father Richard was an insurance broker working in Ipswich. Mother Pauline was a medical secretary-turned-homemaker. His father has since died, but his mother lives just 'five miles away', his brother, Anthony, is 'down the road' and his sister, Katie, 'is next door'. Various nephews and nieces 'call me when they hate their parents. I'm that kind of ridiculous uncle, right? They'll tell me things they would never tell their parents.' Bull attended the independent Framlingham College and studied medicine at Imperial College, graduating in the early 1990s, with degrees in medicine, surgery and science. 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An agent followed: Bull's first TV gig, in 1995, was giving health tips for a travel show on Sky. A meeting with John Craven landed him a job on Newsround ('I ended up doing Saturday mornings with an aardvark called Otis'). His list of credits is extraordinary, including kids' talk show Sort It!, Watchdog, Watchdog Healthcheck. Then he did Tomorrow's World in 2002 to 2003. 'I killed that,' he says. 'I was the last presenter of that.' He wrote books on teenage health, established a PR company, campaigned to put fruit on Virgin trains, was a ubiquitous presence on morning chat shows and met the Royal family. Prince Philip 'had the most brilliant sense of humour. I remember one day when we were in Buckingham Palace' – for the Duke of Edinburgh awards – 'and he came in and he looked at me and said, 'Not you again.' And I said, 'Well I could say the same for you, sir.' He loved that kind of sparring.' On another occasion, the Queen asked him the secret of a long life after he'd had 'three or four glasses of champagne'. He replied: 'You're doing pretty well without me.' There was a deathly silence. 'I thought I've either played this really well or it's a disaster. And she laughed.' All very interesting, but what I really want to hear about is Most Haunted Live!, the interactive paranormal show he fronted from 2002 to 2005. 'Outta 30 years' [career], you've chosen that one?' he asks with mock surprise. Shortly after he was appointed Reform chair, Bull was asked by Richard Madeley on Good Morning Britain if he believes in ghosts. 'I said, 'Look, things happen I can't explain.' And [he] said, 'What?' Now, I had a split second judgment to decide. Do I say, I'll tell you over dinner? Or do I launch in, full-throated – which was a foolish move, but I did.' Bull then recalled that after one edition of Most Haunted Live, relaxing in a hotel, the psychic Derek Acorah had told him his late grandmother was present in the room: then 'his face changed, he jumped on top of me and he tried to strangle me'. Bouncers pulled Acorah off. The next day, Acorah apologised and explained that when talking to Bull's grandmother, an 'evil spirit' had possessed him. I ask: 'Is there a part of you that thinks he was looking for an excuse to jump on you and strangle you?' 'Sure.' He admits: 'I must sound like a complete fruit loop.' But in the end the joke was on Madeley. A poll revealed that a plurality of Reform supporters believe in the paranormal, 'so there's a splash on one of the newspapers saying, David Bull is on the money'. Bull's transition to politics began at a drinks reception in the mid 2000s. 'There were various MPs around, and I was having a go at them and saying: 'None of you ever do anything and you're all useless.' And one of them said to me: 'Well, why don't you do it?' And I thought, right, I will then, 'cos I like a challenge.' David Cameron put Bull on his A-list of parliamentary candidates and he was chosen to fight Brighton Pavilion, though he pulled out a year before the 2010 election. His father was terminally ill, so he returned to Suffolk. He was asked instead to head a Conservative review on sexual health. Bull left a mark in Brighton by attending Pride in a t-shirt that read 'I've come out... I'm a Tory'. He is openly gay: is it easier to be homosexual than Right-wing? 'Yeah, hundred per cent,' in fact, 'being gay is a bit dull. Pride has kind of fulfilled what it's set out to do, which was to grant true equality.' With that battle won, he says some lobby groups 'are going after a whole new group' in a bid for relevance – ie transgender people – 'talking to kids who are not fully formed emotionally, intellectually, sexually, and persuading them that maybe they're not happy in their own body.' He empathises with the youngsters: 'you won't believe this but as a child, I was shy and… I was bullied really badly at school, and I was fat.' That's all part of 'growing up', and we shouldn't rush to 'medicalise'. I note that Vanessa Frake, a former prison governor who has joined Reform, has said that there shouldn't be a blanket ban on trans-women in female prisons, causing confusion over what the party thinks. 'It's not party policy: we believe there are two biological sexes, that actually male prisoners are in one prison and female prisoners are in another.' But then he adds that Frake 'made quite an interesting point. What happens if you fully transitioned? If you've got female parts but are biologically a man, where do you put them?' The obvious answer is 'they should be in their own prison'. But we can't do that, so 'that's why she said it needs to be done on a case by case basis, and that's why everyone's gone absolutely ape over the whole thing'. As to Frake's argument, he says: 'I don't think it is unreasonable but it's not what people want to hear.' He is 'fiscally conservative' yet 'socially liberal': one of his first encounters with Farage was in 2014, when he criticised the then Ukip leader for saying the NHS shouldn't treat migrants with HIV. 'I may or may not have written on Twitter [now X], after a drink, that he was an idiot.' So it came as a surprise in 2019 when he received a call from Farage – 'who I'd never met' – to say, 'I want you to stand for the European Parliament: right now.' For the north-west, rather than his home in Suffolk, where candidates were needed. Bull, who was enthusiastically pro-Brexit, won and served a few bizarre months in Brussels. 'I can see why the MEPs love it because you get paid really well. You only have to sign in, you don't have to do anything for the money.' Plus, 'you get a car to drive you everywhere'. In the 2019 general election, he stood in Sedgefield, placing third; in 2021, he ran in the London Assembly, coming fifth in City and East. With Boris Johnson as prime minister, Britain left the EU, and 'the Brexit Party was put on ice because it was a single issue party'. Nevertheless, Bull had become friends with Richard Tice, doing Tice's chat show out of the studio Bull had built next door to the barn: a small group decided to launch Reform to keep the populist flame burning. Farage returned for the general election of 2024, in which Bull ran for Suffolk West and took 20 per cent, and today the party polls north of 30 per cent across much of the country. Reform might be doing even better but for a series of internal rows that culminated in Zia Yusuf, the previous chair, criticising an anti-burka Reform MP and then agreeing to step aside. Yusuf did an 'amazing job' setting up 400 branches, he says, but 'it burnt him out', so Farage called Bull and asked him to take over. The role has been split in two, administration and team building, with Bull leading the latter as Reform expands and democratises. 'There's been a big disconnect I think in the past between the professional party in London and the people who do all the hard work knocking on doors and volunteering and all that dreadful stuff.' Bull travels the country 'rallying the troops'. Paul Nuttall, a past leader of Ukip, has joined as a more backstage vice-chair to take care of candidates. 'Ultimately, Nigel trusts me [because] I'm a team player.' I wonder if any of the splits that have happened have hurt? Rupert Lowe MP walked away, so did Ben Habib, a former co-leader of Reform whom Bull clearly likes. 'I have a lot of time for both of them actually. I think with Rupert, he's a really effective MP from what I understand. But I assume there's a clash of personalities.' Farage and Lowe are 'strong characters', both 'used to working for themselves'. Bull declares: 'I haven't got time for big egos.' How does he work with Farage then? 'He's the most effective orator and brilliant political mind I have ever met. If I say to him, I want you to speak for 45 minutes, he will speak for 45 minutes and zero seconds… without notes. And he's developed techniques to do that. But if we are seriously growing this to be a party of government, then we have to have a team. You cannot have the Nigel Farage show.' Bull continues: 'He's mellowing… He knows he has to build this party and – he has said this – it can no longer be about him.' It's an impression others share: I'm told Farage looked upon Yusuf with almost parental affection, and found the attacks on his character and ethnicity repellent. When Bull confided to him that he found reading his own Twitter feed demoralising, Farage replied: 'Just don't read it.' In an ideal world, would Habib and Lowe be in Reform? 'I don't think either would come back. It's a bit like a family when you've fallen out.' I suggest they're also going down a rabbit hole in their obsession with Islam and immigration. 'Remember,' says Bull, 'politics is won and lost in the centre-ground. It always has been.' Reform is about 'common sense' rather than ideology, and now that it is actually winning, it mustn't over-promise. 'One of the things that I'm really keen to impress upon our councillors – we've got 864 now – is that we absolutely have to deliver in those councils that we control because unless we can show that we're effective at local government, then people won't trust us when it comes to national government. Nigel can't do it as a one-man band, and he knows it.' Will Bull run for parliament again? 'It's hard blinking work doing that. Yes is the answer, but I'm a great believer you need affinity with the constituency that you stand for. Right? I hate people being parachuted in and I think people hate it when it happens.' He runs through the possible places – Kent, East Anglia – 'this area, central Suffolk, which is currently [represented by] Patrick Spencer'. I silently note that Spencer is on trial for sexual assault (he has denied wrongdoing); a by-election is possible. 'Might I be talking to a future health secretary?' 'Maybe. I mean, there's a lot of ifs in there, aren't there?' Bull is single. I say I'm surprised, he replies, 'So am I. Such a catch! Oh, you are kind. But it's very difficult, isn't it? And particularly given what I do now. A) I don't have very much time, as you can imagine, and B) Where do I meet anyone? I would need to date someone who likes politics,' preferably who shares his own: 'I would struggle to date someone who's uber Left-wing, for example.' He has learnt 'how lonely this job is'. He laughs, 'I'm staying in a Premier Inn' – the same one, so often that 'they've been giving me a free breakfast'. The realisation dawns: 'I am Alan Partridge!' I sense that in discovering Reform, Bull has found an even bigger family for whom he can play the fun uncle. 'I wouldn't say I'm like Nigel, but when I go into these places, there's whoops and hollers, and people are thrilled that I'm there. I'll give a speech and there's either a standing ovation or people are really moved by what I'm saying. And what I'm saying is nothing clever, it's just reaffirming their own views, I think.'
