Top five howlers from Sturgeon's memoir

Spectator

a day ago

Oh dear. Nicola Sturgeon's memoir Frankly was always going to have its detractors, given how divisive a figure the SNP's former Dear Leader has become. A number of those people will not have read the former first minister's tome in full (for those who want to save themselves the time, Steerpike has compiled a handy list of lowlights here) and so some of the rather, er, fiery criticism may be based more on assertions about Sturgeon's character than the contents of her 450-page project. But it is the litany of factual errors dotted across the book – which appears to be written in American English – that provokes less sympathy from Mr S. Here are some of the worst…
Women elected to Holyrood
Claim: Sturgeon writes that: 'In fact, more women were elected to the Scottish parliament on 6 May 1999 than had been elected in total to the House of Commons since women had first been allowed to stand in 1918.'
Fact check: False. Up until 1999, over 200 women had been elected to the House of Commons since women had been first allowed to stand at the start of the 20th century, compared to the total of 48 women who had been elected to The Scottish parliament on 6 May 1999. Even if the ex-FM had written instead that she meant the number of women sitting 'at any one time' she would have been incorrect, given 120 women were elected in 1997, helped in part by Labour's landslide victory.
The youngest person in the Commons
Claim: Sturgeon writes that: 'Amongst the newbies was Mhairi Black, precociously talented and, at just twenty years old, the youngest person ever elected to the Commons.'
Fact check: False. Christopher Monck, the 2nd Duke of Albemarle, became the Member of Parliament for Devon in February 1667 at, er, just 13 years old. Getting the history right was never Nic's strong point though, eh?
Wrong MP!
Claim: Sturgeon reminisces on the day after the 2015 general election, where the SNP won 56 of Scotland's 59 Westminster seats. She writes:
As I finally boarded the plane to London City, I thought I could at last relax a bit, but as soon as I appeared at the front of the aircraft, passengers started to clap. I found out only much later that one of the Labour MPs we had just defeated had been on the same plane that morning. For Tom Harris, until a few hours earlier the MP for Glasgow Cathcart, my presence must have made an already miserable morning feel even worse.
Fact check: Well, luckily Tom Harris himself spotted the anecdote and took to Twitter to point out the inaccuracies. 'It's the only mention I get,' he notes. 'The thing is, it isn't true.' It turns out Sturgeon got Harris mixed up with Jimmy Hood, the ex-MP for Hamilton East and Lanark, as the former Cathcart politician had decided to stay in Glasgow with his family. He adds: 'Apart from writing something based on inaccurate hearsay, what is the point of the anecdote in the first place, other than to crow – again, a decade later – about a defeated opponent?' Stay classy, Nic.
With a little help from my friends…
Claim: In the first few pages of her chapter on Govan, Sturgeon turns to the issue of the Upper Clyde Shipbuilders – who had been pushed into liquidation after the Conservative government under Edward Heath had withdraw state subsidies from certain industries. But a rather unexpected hero came to the rescue: the Beatles' John Lennon. The ex-FM writes: 'The work-in [staged by the workers to complete orders, instead of going on strike] attracted global attention, including a £5,000 donation from John Lennon.'
Fact check: Only it, er, wasn't £5,000 but a £1,000 sum, as reported by the Morning Star. Whatever happened to Sturgeon's fact-checkers?!
Govan by-election
Claim: Rather bizarrely, the former SNP leader writes in her memoir that her party's victory in the 1988 by-election saw Jim Sillars overturn a Labour majority of 13,000.
Fact check: The Labour majority that was overturned was in fact even greater – at 19,500. A missed opportunity to boast there!
It's quite the list from a former leader of Scotland, eh? Steerpike encourages readers to write in with more errors they spot…