Kevin McKenna: 'A warm welcome by Sturgeon confessions leave me cold'

The Herald Scotland

a day ago

For the record, the former First Minister is looking relaxed in a rather fetching two-piece of brown pinstriped trousers and waistcoat.
She's just stepped off the stage where she'd had a chat with Jim Monaghan to launch the Govanhill Book Festival. Mr Monaghan is a much-loved poet and social activist around the south side of Glasgow and Ms Sturgeon has represented this area in one form or another for almost a quarter of a century.
The contrast between this event and Thursday's official launch of Ms Sturgeon's memoirs at the Edinburgh Book Festival, is stark. Tonight, I'm with 100 or so souls paying not much more than a fiver a pop at the Queen's Park Govanhill Church of Scotland. On Thursday, more than 2,000 people will have paid through the nose at a sold out event at the mighty McEwan Hall.
The conversation was interesting and even, at times, heartfelt. Ms Sturgeon discussed her lifelong love of books and how this had been a light to her in some very dark corners. Acknowledging that there be journos afoot in the audience, she dutifully threw us some scratchings about Donald Trump and Sir Keir Starmer.
Nicola Sturgeon at the Govanhill Book Festival (Image: NQ) 'There's a sense of despair that all the wrong people are in power — not here in Scotland — but there is a sense that the wrong people are taking the world in the wrong direction.
'You've got people like Donald Trump trying to persuade people that the real challenge is not climate change, but the policies that are being pursued to try to tackle climate change.'
She then turned on Sir Keir for 'trying to outdo Nigel Farage on immigration' and for not having 'the guts to stand up and say why the country needs immigration, why it's good for the country to be diverse.'
This may very well be true, but she can't actually believe that right now in Scotland, the right people are in control, given that that they've failed dismally in every important area of public life and by every significant metric. And that because of this, Scotland is a bitterly divided nation where the censor's pen and the redacted document are the chief means of civic governance.
There are traces of this in a pocket of silent protestors who have gathered outside the venue, including some Alex Salmond supporters. Two former SNP members tell me that they consider Ms Sturgeon to be 'worse than Trump'. And as the audience inside began to leave, one chap shouted something about men in women's toilets.
However, this is a community event and a very good one at that. The Q&A session that follows the conversation isn't really for journalists to do grandstanding.
The book festival is part of the wider Govanhill Festival which is now in its ninth year. It's a triumph of optimism and creativity in a neighbourhood that's had to meet and overcome some chronic adversity.
For a while, Govanhill was the favoured destination of right-wing newspaper snoopers channelling racism directed at the Roma Community who have settled here and blaming Nicola Sturgeon for the perceived decrepitude of the hedges in this area.
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Ms Sturgeon has played an active part in bringing about the re-birth of Govanhill and has been tireless in her advocacy for the restoration of the Govanhill Baths. She was also a champion for the astonishing transformation in the Gorbals just down the road. She is both well-kent and much admired in this constituency.
Once, around ten years ago I'd taken her into Heraghty's Bar for a couple of drinks following an interview in her constituency office which sat across the road from the best pub in the south side of Glasgow. It was an establishment mainly favoured by the Irish community and she was very much at home sipping white wine spritzers at the bar amongst the regulars.
Everything Ms Sturgeon said about the US President and Keir Starmer was rendered somewhat redundant though, when Boothman of the Times sidled up to me afterwards to show me his paper's breathless on-line exclusive. The Times have paid serious money to get access to Ms Sturgeon's recollections. And this evening the first fruits of it were revealed.
They told us that Ms Sturgeon considers her sexuality to be non-binary and about the heartache of suffering a miscarriage. The day she was lifted by the cops in 2023 was 'the worst day of my life'. For the sake of the publishers who paid £300k for the book, I hope there is a lot more meat than this.
Coming out as non-binary in Scotland these days is as risqué as getting a tattoo without telling your parents. And Ms Sturgeon has already discussed the tragedy of her miscarriage. Getting your collar felt by the cops when you think you've done nothing wrong would be the worst day in anyone's life. She would, of course have no case to answer.
Meanwhile, you might ask why a fierce advocate for Scottish independence chose a London firm to publish her memoir. Pan Macmillan are amongst the world's mightiest and richest publishers and would easily have outbid the single Scottish firm which competed for them. What a message it would have conveyed to Scotland's ailing publishing sector though, if Ms Sturgeon had chosen to be published here.
I ask Ms Sturgeon if she has plans to write more books. 'You'd be well-placed to write a decent political thriller,' I tell her.
'Do you think I'd need to portray you in it,' she says with only a hint of menace.
'Well, if you feel you've been too nice in your memoirs, you could settle a few scores under the cover of dramatic fiction,' I reply.