Nicola Sturgeon ‘didn't anticipate' criticism of gender reform legislation
Ms Sturgeon said that in retrospect she should have paused the legislation for a time due to the strong backlash she received.
The former SNP leader said: 'I didn't anticipate as much as I should, or engage as much as I should, on some of the concerns that might then be triggered.
'At the point I knew it was becoming, or felt it becoming, as polarised I should have said, 'Right, OK, let's pause, let's take a step back'.
'I fervently believe that the rights of women and the interests of trans people are not irreconcilable at all.
'I should have taken a step back and said, 'How do we achieve this?''
In what marks the first television interview ahead of the publication of her memoir, Ms Sturgeon also discussed with ITV presenter Julie Etchingham her experience of being raided by police, rumours surrounding her sexuality, her relationship with Alex Salmond, and a miscarriage she previously suffered.
Reliving her experience of being raided by police, she said: 'I don't really have a clear memory of that because I think I'd gone upstairs to get myself ready.
'I genuinely don't know whether the fact that I don't have a clear image of that in my head is because I didn't witness it or that I have kind of somehow blocked it out.
'It wasn't until I got to mum and dad's that I saw the pictures of my house looking like a murder scene effectively.
'It was just, sorry, I'm not really, I'm just working out… it's really hard to articulate how I felt that day.
'I had this sense of horror and upset and the kind of shame of it all.'
Ms Sturgeon said it was 'horrific' walking into a police station, and that part of her 'closed down'.
In her book, the former first minister says she has never considered sexuality, including her own, to be binary.
She told ITV: 'I mean what it says, it's just my view of the world and life and the way people are.
'If you're about to ask me, am I making some big revelation? No. Am I putting labels on myself? No. That's how I see the world.'
Etchingham asked: 'Might we see you in a relationship with a woman?'
Ms Sturgeon replied: 'I'm just out of a marriage, so I'm not rushing into a relationship with anyone, anytime soon.
'I'm enjoying being my own person for a while.'
Etchingham asked: 'But not ruling it out?'
Ms Sturgeon said: 'I'm not contemplating sort of anything of that nature. I'm just enjoying life.'
Commenting on extracts from Ms Sturgeon's memoirs, Scottish Labour's deputy leader Dame Jackie Baillie said: 'If Nicola Sturgeon's memoir was simply a chronicle of her achievements as first minister it would be a short read.
'Unsurprisingly this book does not implore readers to judge Nicola Sturgeon on her record on education.
'Frankly, no-one has squandered as much political opportunity as badly as Nicola Sturgeon.
'Remarkably her memory of events seems to be returning, as she appeared to suffer from amnesia when she was before the parliamentary inquiry into the handling of sexual harassment complaints against the former first minister, Alex Salmond.
'As a result of her dismal lack of delivery in office, Nicola Sturgeon's legacy will be defined instead by political division and personal drama.'
Nicola Sturgeon: The Interview will be broadcast on Monday, August 11 at 7pm on ITV1, ITVX & STV.
An extended version of the interview will be available on ITVX in the following days.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Scotsman
36 minutes ago
- Scotsman
Nicola Sturgeon vs Boris Johnson: Two memoirs and two unreliable narrators
Sign up to our daily newsletter – Regular news stories and round-ups from around Scotland direct to your inbox Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to The Scotsman, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... Maybe it was only to be expected of someone credited with being the best political communicator of her generation, but you've got to hand it to Nicola Sturgeon and the publicists at Macmillan behind her memoir Frankly. Her occupation of the Scottish news headlines since the end of last week has been total. 'A triumph. Frankly is the most insightful and stylishly open memoir by a politician since Barack Obama's Dreams From My Father,' said star Scottish novelist Andrew O'Hagan in the blurb for advance orders on Amazon (hard-cover £20.77). Didn't read that, but I liked Mayflies, so I'll take his word for it. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The drip-drip of lines in The Times serialisation, the extra tit-bits and a few tears in her interview with ITV's Julie Etchingham and a characteristically combative interview on Radio 4's Today programme have kept the Sturgeon bandwagon rolling, as she happily prepares the ground for the next chapter of her life, perhaps with some international organisation like Unicef, wringing out the sympathy from every episode at every opportunity. Will Boris Johnson be tempted to review Nicola Sturgeon's new memoir, Frankly? (Picture: Duncan McGlynn) | Getty Images Straightening their records Not having privileged access to a freebie advance review copy or having time to nip down to Waterstones – where it was on sale with £6 knocked off three days ahead of official publication – before this column's deadline, my take on Ms Sturgeon's recollections is reliant on those extracts and interviews, and so much of it has been copied and posted that maybe I needn't bother with the book itself. But as a historic document perhaps I should, and it can sit on my bookshelf next to Unleashed, Boris Johnson's account of his rise and fall from Number 10, a similar exercise in record straightening, for want of a better phrase. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad I have no idea if Andrew O'Hagan has read Unleashed and therefore puts it behind Frankly in the league table of political revisionism, but while styles clearly differ, both must be unreliable narrators of their own stories, just as I'm not best qualified to be an unbiased judge of Ms Sturgeon's work. But with such a polarising figure, who is? As The Salt Path controversy gloriously illustrated, first-person accounts aren't necessarily the most reliable. A reviewer of Unleashed in the left-of-centre New Statesman magazine explained: 'Maybe it is a feature of memoirs, but large chunks of this one feels like the version of Boris Johnson's time in office he wishes were true. Or perhaps he genuinely believes it to be true.' This must surely apply equally to Ms Sturgeon's recollections. 'I must have blocked it out' It stretches credibility to beyond breaking point that, as Ms Sturgeon told Julie Etchingham, she has little memory of what happened or how she felt when the police arrived at her door to turn the place over as part of the investigation into alleged embezzlement of SNP funds. We know she did nothing wrong because she will not face any charges, so would a normal person in the same situation not have remembered something of how it felt to be an innocent person whose life was upended in an instant? The 'I must have blocked it out or something' explanation for her amnesia, at one of the most dramatic moments in her life, seems rather similar to the evidence she gave to the parliamentary probe into her office's involvement or otherwise with the initial complaints against Alex Salmond. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad It also seems spiteful, and unchallengeable because he is dead, to claim Mr Salmond didn't read the independence white paper before publication in 2013, instead heading off on a trade trip to China. Maybe he read the detail on the plane? Who knows? At least we have confirmation that the 'most detailed' preparation for a new country was anything but, which anyone with half a brain, including nationalists, knew at the time. What does that say for the recent independence papers she commissioned, which were worse? The Press corps too is a target for a disgraceful hatchet job, claiming men in the Scottish press hushed up allegations of inappropriate behaviour against a political reporter, when Ms Sturgeon should have known the journalist was dismissed after his editor, a man, was informed. 'Memoir of a clown' Just as Mr Johnson remained befuddled as to why Partygate became such a big deal, apart from the desire of a lot of Tory MPs to do him in, Ms Sturgeon cannot understand why the Gender Recognition Reform Bill became such a defining and damaging issue, in which she believes resolutely to be in the right, perhaps because, as she has now told the world, she regards her sexuality as not being 'binary'. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad The Johnson book was so widely panned as being 'the memoir of a clown', as The Guardian described it, and was relatively light on revelation and heavy on entertainment value, that I don't recall its publication last October being accompanied by anything like the same media frenzy as Frankly, but then again Scotland is a small country and it's August with not a lot else going on, and Unleashed was released for the UK political conference season when the news agenda is usually packed. The timing is instructive. Ms Sturgeon does genuinely seem to be looking forward to new life – and isn't it fun that the Queen of Separatism apparently loves London, and chose The Times of London to serialise her book. But it's clear from Unleashed that return is very much on Mr Johnson's mind, and according to a recent Conservative Home survey, it's a hope shared by a quarter of 2024 Conservative voters.
Scotsman
43 minutes ago
- Scotsman
Elections will be end of the road for SNP
Dualling the A9 is a big political issue in the Highlands (Picture: John Devlin) Despite having a good deal to say for herself in the memoir she's published this week, Nicola Sturgeon is not known for being a conversationalist. Sign up to our daily newsletter Sign up Thank you for signing up! Did you know with a Digital Subscription to Edinburgh News, you can get unlimited access to the website including our premium content, as well as benefiting from fewer ads, loyalty rewards and much more. Learn More Sorry, there seem to be some issues. Please try again later. Submitting... While we were leaders of our respective parties there were a number of occasions on which we'd be backstage together. Unlike other party leaders, invariably she would arrive just minutes before the event and would almost never engage in small talk. In fact, the only thing I remember her saying in those moments was to agree to a bet with Douglas Ross as to who would last longer in post. A bet that she ultimately lost (and to Douglas Ross of all people). To be fair to Nicola, there was one occasion where she did instigate a conversation with me. I'd had to resuscitate my daughter after she swallowed a coin and she actively sought me out to ask after Darcy's wellbeing. I appreciated that and I won't forget it, but interactions like that seem to be exceptional from a personality that whilst very polished and forthright on camera is actually surprisingly shy in real life. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This memoir has set hares running. It has reignited a civil war in the SNP over the allegations around Alex Salmond and her strategy for delivering independence. And all this just months before a crucial Holyrood election that will see the SNP try to cling desperately to power for an eyewatering fifth term. Last weekend, with the SNP's Kate Forbes announcing that she was stepping down, I was in the Highlands where the Scottish Liberal Democrats are set to run the table and oust the SNP from nearly every seat. On the doorsteps, local people were quick to raise the legacy of the erstwhile First Minister. But it wasn't complimentary. They know full well that on her watch both as health secretary and FM, Nicola Sturgeon presided over the erosion of rural healthcare. That reality is measured out in the time it takes them to get an appointment with their GP, in how far pregnant mums have to travel to give birth or how long folk have to wait for orthopaedic surgery. They hold her responsible for the SNP's failure to dual the A9, the arterial route to the North. It took nine years for NASA to put a man on the moon but after nearly 20 years in power the SNP have made next to no progress towards this vital commitment. Highlanders will wearily point out that if the M8 were killing nearly 10 people a year because of single carriageway sections, it would be dualled by Christmas. Advertisement Hide Ad Advertisement Hide Ad This speaks to the disinterest that SNP ministers have in the needs and interests of anyone outside of the central belt. But that disinterest transcends geography. Nicola Sturgeon's fixation on one final heave to break up the UK has seen our school standards slide, our health service hobbled and our economy stagnate. The reality is that try as we might, we as politicians don't get to define our own legacies. An autobiography won't change the judgement of the people or repeal their assessment of a character that whilst dominant in Scottish Politics for so long, will be remembered as much for what she didn't achieve. Scotland deserves better, and next May, we have the chance to finally close the book on the failures of both Nicola Sturgeon and her party once and for all. Alex Cole-Hamilton is Scottish Liberal Democrat leader and MSP for Edinburgh Western
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Backlash grows against Fringe venue in free speech row over ban on Kate Forbes
The Edinburgh Fringe venue which plans to ban Kate Forbes faced a major backlash yesterday amid calls for its public funding to be withdrawn. Summerhall Arts faced criticism from across the political spectrum for indicating that the Deputy First Minister will not be allowed to appear in future due to her views on trans issues. The organisation, which received more than £600,000 of public cash from Creative Scotland earlier this year, said it was an 'oversight' that she was interviewed onstage at the venue last week and it would now draw up 'robust, proactive inclusion and wellbeing policies' to ensure it doesn't happen again with future bookings. SNP Finance Secretary Shona Robison led the criticism yesterday, saying it 'doesn't send out the right signal around freedom of speech and intolerance', while the Scottish Government said it 'supports individuals' rights to freedom of expression'. But ministers were urged to go further and ensure that Summerhall and other venues which restrict freedom of speech do not get public cash. In a separate development, it emerged that the National Library of Scotland had removed a book about the fight against the SNP Government's gender self-ID crusade from a major exhibition following concerns by staff members. Murdo Fraser, culture spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: 'There's a need across the public sector to understand that free speech needs to be upheld. 'Public bodies like the National Library of Scotland cannot be involved in censorship of public opinion because they want to protect militant activist groups in the workforce. The same has to apply to groups in receipt of public funds. 'Summerhall has received substantial grant funding from Creative Scotland and these grants need to be conditional on certain standard being met, including upholding free speech. 'The idea that anyone is terrified of Kate Forbes is laughable and it is ridiculous that one of the most powerful politicians in the country as Deputy First Minister is not going to be allowed to speak. No organisation taking that view should receive a penny of public funds.' Mr Fraser said he intends to raise the issue with Culture Secretary Angus Robertson and with Creative Scotland. Asked about the decision by LBC yesterday, Ms Robison said: 'I think we need to be tolerant of each other's views. 'She is the Deputy First Minister of Scotland and I just think it doesn't send out the right signal around freedom of speech and intolerance. 'I know Kate very well and I just don't think it sends out the right message.' Former SNP MP Joanna Cherry yesterday raised concerns about 'threats to freedom of speech in Scotland' from within her party and others. Appearing in a live version of Matt Forde's Political Party at the Edinburgh Fringe, Ms Cherry said: 'It is shocking that a venue in this city has effectively said that the Deputy First Minister is not welcome there, I presume because of her religious faith, and that staff are so coddled that they need to have a safe room provided for them when Kate comes to speak. 'I was at the event that Kate spoke at last week. With all due respect to Kate, it wasn't particularly exciting.' She said there is a 'real problem' across Scottish society, and added: 'This is a problem which has not grown up from the grassroots; it has been imposed from top down. 'It is only with political leadership that we can address these problems and I fear the political leadership isn't there. 'I hold Nicola Sturgeon responsible for a lot of this - a lot of this nonsense is part of her legacy. But I also hold the current First Minister responsible for not having the courage to speak against it. And I think Anas Sarwar is pretty much missing in action on this as well.' A Scottish Government spokesman said: 'While ministers have no role in booking or curation decisions taken by individual venues or institutions, the Scottish Government supports individuals' rights to freedom of expression and we are clear that there is no place for any form of discrimination in Scotland.' Summerhall Arts did not respond yesterday when asked if it would reverse its decision to prepare policies to prevent some artists and politicians like Ms Forbes appearing in future. A spokesman for Summerhall Arts said: 'The Fringe event referenced passed without incident. 'Forbes is not banned from the Summerhall building which encompasses a cafe, pub, arts venues, galleries and independent traders' offices and studios. Swinney, Curtice, Sarwar, Forbes all entered and exited the building the same way for the events over each day. 'The Herald Unspun events were a paid hire and programmed by The Herald newspaper.' Other acts to feature in the Summerhall Arts Fringe programme this year include a spoken word performance by Russian activist group Pussy Riot and a show called 'No Apologies', which reimagines the late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain as a trans woman. The programe also includes a performance entitled 'Chat Sh**, Get Hit', which 'dives into women's anger: how it fuels, how it festers and how it is swallowed'.
