Latest news with #ImWithNicola
The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
Nicola Sturgeon memoir reveals letters from Donald Trump
In 2019, a judge ruled Trump International Golf Club Scotland Ltd had to pay the legal bills incurred by the Scottish Government following his unsuccessful challenge. Ms Sturgeon has never met the US President – a fact she said she is not 'unhappy about'. Following the dispute over wind farms, the now-President also sent Ms Sturgeon cuttings of newspaper articles about the 'evils of wind power' around 2018 while building his Aberdeenshire golf course. She said he had underlined passages, writing 'CRAZY!!!!' in 'all thick black Sharpie'. While Ms Sturgeon has not met Trump, she said she received a 'green ink' letter – a term used to describe eccentric views. Read more: Nicola Sturgeon memoir: Why former first minister cried for Boris Johnson 'I hated it': Sturgeon on the SNP's #ImWithNicola branding He had taken 'umbrage' to a proposed offshore windfarm amid fears it would ruin the view from his Aberdeenshire golf course. 'He sent me cuttings of newspaper articles about the evils of wind power,' she writes. 'He underlined passages and scrawled single words followed by multiple exclamation marks in the margins – 'CRAZY!!!!' for example, all in thick black Sharpie.' Later, Ms Sturgeon had a phone call with Trump ahead of his first inauguration in January 2017. Ms Sturgeon was in her constituency office in Govanhill for the phone call and described the exchange ranking 'amongst the most absurd of my entire time in office'. She said she felt she had to 'say her piece' immediately and emphasised the need for the 'longstanding' relationship between Scotland and the US continue. But she also condemned some of the rhetoric used during his presidential campaign and said she hoped policies like a Muslim ban would not be part of his administration. She also asked about his Scottish businesses. 'I doubt he heard a single world,' she said. The President then launched into a 'monologue', according to the former first minister. Paraphrasing the President, she said he asked whether Ms Sturgeon was aware he was Scottish on his mother's side, before describing Scotland as having a 'mad obsession' with wind farms. 'Had I noticed what had happened to the US economy since his election?' she writes. 'No President had ever created since a strong economy and he wasn't even in office yet. His popularity ratings were soaring too. It was unprecedented. And his sons? Did I know he had the smartest sons any father had ever had? And so it went on.' Ms Sturgeon then said: 'When the call ended, I wondered if I had just woken from a very bad acid dream.' A few minutes after that call, Ms Sturgeon's chief of staff, Liz Lloyd received a call from President Trump's national security adviser General Mike Flynn. He was calling to 'ask Liz if it was true that the President-elect had just spoken to the First Minister, and if so, could she tell him what had been discussed? It seemed that he had known nothing about it.' The bizarre exchange comes as the President made a parting dig at Ms Sturgeon following his visit to Scotland last moth. He praised John Swinney but said he did not "have a lot of respect" for the "woman that preceded him", adding that she was a "terrible first minister".
The Herald Scotland
a day ago
- Politics
- The Herald Scotland
‘I hated it': Sturgeon on the SNP's #ImWithNicola branding
The slogan 'Nicola Sturgeon for First Minister' became the campaign's strapline and appeared on billboards across Scotland, often with large photographs of her. Within days, the party also had merchandise emblazoned with '#ImWithNicola.' Even though she believes the strategy ultimately did the SNP 'no harm', Ms Sturgeon writes that it was 'overdone' and born from 'a strange mix of insecurity, electoral expedience and arrogance'. 'No one other than me thought I lacked legitimacy as First Minister,' she writes. "However, I was obsessed with getting my own mandate. As far as I was concerned, until I had put myself on the line and been elected First Minister in my own right, I wouldn't be taken seriously." Her approval ratings were high, routinely exceeding the SNP's, and she was, she says, viewed as a 'massive electoral asset'. But the approach, she admits, 'ended up a bit over the top' and was driven by her own ego. 'I had started to believe, politically speaking, that I really did walk on water. Indeed, if there was any period in my time as leader when I succumbed to hubris, this was it.' It was the '#ImWithNicola' merchandise, she says, that made her feel most uneasy, suggesting it implied 'voters were expected to pledge loyalty to me rather than the other way round — and I hated it'. Although she did not personally micromanage the campaign leaflets and marketing, she now wishes she had stopped the more overtly personal branding. Despite her discomfort, the SNP won a decisive victory. Sturgeon secured 61.4% of the vote in her Glasgow Southside constituency, with her majority surging to 9,593. Nationally, the party increased its share of the constituency vote, becoming the first in the history of the re-established Scottish Parliament to secure more than one million votes. But the result still fell short of an outright majority, prompting some commentators to portray it as a disappointment. 'It was frustrating,' Sturgeon writes, 'but that, I suppose, is politics.'
