Nicola Sturgeon: I cried in the toilets after being bullied by MSP

Times

a day ago

Nicola Sturgeon cried after a male MSP spread unfounded rumours that she had hurt a boyfriend during oral sex.
The former first minister revealed in her new book that she was bullied by a male politician from another party who called her 'Gnasher', including to her face, in reference to the claims.
She said the behaviour escalated to the point that he would often make 'jokes' about dentists and teeth in her presence.
Sturgeon said she broke down in the parliamentary toilets when she first heard the story but only later came to realise in 2017 when filling out a Holyrood survey provoked by the Me Too movement that she had been a victim of misogynistic bullying.
She said she had thought 'long and hard' about whether to name the politician, who is still alive.
However, she said she had decided not to as 'the thought of his face all over the media, and of the backlash he might try to whip up against me, makes me feel sick'.
Sturgeon revealed that when she stood for the SNP leadership in 2004, before aborting the bid and standing on a joint-ticket with Alex Salmond, a former boyfriend had even been doorstepped by a tabloid journalist asking if he had 'been the one'.
'Whether he was the instigator of the story or just enjoyed referencing it to make me feel uncomfortable, I don't know,' Sturgeon writes of her tormentor.
'It was untrue, and the fact I feel the need to say that is in itself horrible, but I was utterly mortified.
'On the day I found out about the story, I cried in one of the toilets in the parliament office complex, wondering how I was ever going to face people.'
Sturgeon, who was 28 when she was elected an MSP in 1999, then says the bully's behaviour got 'steadily worse' and that she became 'quite scared of him', with her heart racing whenever she saw him or heard his voice.
She said his taunting 'abated eventually' but only after 'months of what felt like torture' with the story continuing to resurface as she became ever more prominent in Scottish politics.
'I thought it was just part or parcel of politics, something I had to endure,' she writes in her memoir Frankly.
'It wasn't until 2017, when I was filling out a survey conducted by the Scottish parliament authorities in the wake of the #MeToo revelations that I realised it had been bullying.
'It was bullying of an overtly sexual nature, designed to humiliate and intimidate, to cut a young woman down to size and put her in her place.'
Sturgeon adds: 'Perhaps the fact I have not named this man is another sign that things have not changed as much as I might have hoped. I have thought long and hard about whether I should reveal his identity.
'I worry that in deciding not to, I am being less brave than I should be. But the thought of his face all over the media, and of the backlash he might try to whip up against me, makes me feel sick.
'Even just thinking about it transports me back to the day I cried in the toilet all those years ago. It is for my own sake that I am letting him off the hook.
'But he knows who he is. I can only hope that he has the decency to reflect on how his behaviour made me feel.'
The revelations are likely to provoke speculation about the identity of the bully, with several MSPs who were elected in 1999 going on to hold prominent roles in politics and professional life.
There are well over 40 male politicians, who were elected to the first term of the Scottish parliament for parties other than the SNP, who are still alive.