In which we learnt that Sturgeon began work on her memoir the same week she was interviewed under caution.
Predictable
When Nicola Sturgeon came on stage, uncomfortably waddling in strappy scarlet stilettos, it provoked one fanboy to shout out: ‘We love you Nicola.’ I knew it was going to be like that. Tickets for the front stalls were £47, which cleverly included a copy of Frankly, meaning Sturgeon would have her biggest fans up front. Security was tight, with attendees frisked by hired security guards. There was also no photography allowed of the anointed one and audience questions had to be emailed in advance.
Cathy Newman, to her credit, got a fair few digs in on various topics, particularly self-identification of gender, but with a hoard of adoring Nicolarettes in the room, it was obviously never going to be a grilling.
The conversation
She’s a public introvert
Sturgeon claims to be ‘a shy introverted person’ and much more comfortable on stage than she would be sitting around a dinner table with a bunch of people she didn’t know particularly well. Clearly Sturgeon has never known a shy person in her life then, because all the ones I have, would be mortified to a rictus to entertain either such notion.
How did you learn to loosen up?
Like most people, it wasn’t until Sturgeon was in her thirties that she loosened up and became more comfortable with herself, but unlike most people, Sturgeon believes this marks herself out as different.
On being in a man’s world
Sturgeon is also labouring under the misapprehension that her political career has been blighted by being a woman in a man’s world, this is despite the fact that the 2015 SNP landslide resulted in at least twenty-one new female SNP MPs being elected. Therefore, her repeated remonstrations about what it was like to be a woman in politics, made me wonder if she deliberately surrounded herself with men and avoided women, or if she was just lying her arse off. She also bizarrely claimed that the media had never characterised Gordon Brown as dour and unsmiling, when that is pretty much all they ever said.
The interminable 007 anecdote
As further proof of her savoir faire, we had an excruciating anecdote. She had once been given an elocution lesson by vile misogynist Sean Connery in The New Club, Edinburgh, but no – hahaha– wasn’t going to do a Connery impersonation, –no she wasn’t – (as if we were all begging). This was just before she became deputy leader of the SNP in 2004. She had met him before but this time he wanted to show her how to deepen her voice so that she could sound more authoritative. Fascinating.
On Alex Salmond
Newman probed Sturgeon as to her knowledge of the *sexual misconduct by Alex Salmond, surely Sturgeon had heard the rumours?
Sturgeon said she had heard rumours about consensual affairs but had never heard of or seen any inappropriate sexual behaviour from Salmond. She claims that when journalists had confronted her with ‘but everybody knew,’ she shot back: ‘Why didn’t you say something then?’ Newman asked if perhaps she was insufficiently curious? No, said Sturgeon, and in fact she was really the real victim in all this, as she was blamed and treated unjustly (no thoughts to the alleged victims, she clearly believes, given). It wasn’t fair to hold her responsible for his behaviour, said Our Lady of Sturgeon, to a round of long applause.
*Charges that Salmond was ultimately cleared of, but both forgot to mention that.
Her husband, Peter Murrell
Yet another man who has caused you embarrassment is your husband Peter, isn’t it? said Newman, sharpening claws. ‘He’s been charged with embezzling SNP funds and has entered no plea, hasn’t he? […] What do you remember of the moment he was arrested?’ was the final softball though, allowing Sturgeon to resort to the ‘quite some detail’ she had put in her memoir about 5 April 2023.
It was the worst day of her life, having been only eight days from leaving her role as First Minister (as if the two things were entirely unconnected). Sturgeon claims to have gone into ‘a state of shock’ and ‘utter bewilderment.’ Ideally Newman should have asked then about the leaked video from March 2021, in which she urged members to be very careful what they said about Party finances. Sturgeon wasn’t able to go into the substance of the case as proceedings were live and tried her best to sound not too relieved.
That week she was very sad (not really)
Newman, drawing on detail from the book, pointed out to her that she had said she had gone down to the sea, stared out at it, and wondered about not being there. Sturgeon was quick to clarify that this was just a literary flourish and that she hadn’t been suicidal at all, but repeated her claim it was the worst moment of her life. She had left the police station, having been interviewed under caution, but her chief worry was being found by the media. In reality she was safe and secure at her friend’s house, at an isolated location by the coast, soothed by the ebb and flow of the tide and pondering the history of time. She started work on Frankly the same week, such was her discombobulation. It also coincided with a heatwave. Sometimes life is so fucking hard, isn’t it? Never mind that the SNP’s finances and dreams of Independence had been spaffed up the wall (which isn’t something I give a fuck about, clearly, but you’d think she might).
Torrid lesbian affairs
As per usual with Sturgeon, mentioning of lesbian-anything got toe curling. Newman was eager to push her on her ‘torrid lesbian affair’ rumour, in the lead up to probing her about her sexuality, i.e. the ‘revelation’ in the memoir that she had never considered her sexuality to be binary. Sturgeon likes to believe that the rumour about her having an affair with some French diplomat was the result of a Russian bot factory, rather than the natural outcome of the persistent gossip that they are both homosexual and in a marriage of convenience.
Newman pushed her on the comment about her sexuality not being binary and Sturgeon explained that she didn’t want people to think that the rumour about the affair had gotten to her because it was to do with it being a same-sex relationship, it was because it was a lie. She didn’t mind people talking about her personal life, she was a public figure after all and she had just written a book about the same, but she wanted to redraw the boundaries of public and private and private relationships were just that. Don’t expect a commentary from her, on who she’s being non-binary with! Orwite?
Another embarrassing man – Isla Bryson (aka Adam Graham)
Newman pointed out that Sturgeon had admitted in the book that she may have been wiser to have taken a step back and look at the self-identification of gender proposal more closely; would Sturgeon go further and admit that she had got the whole thing wrong? No, said Sturgeon, without pause and to a spontaneous round of applause and cheers from the Nicolarettes.
As per all her other comments on this issue during this book tour, Sturgeon doubled down, citing the ‘toxicity’ of the debate, stating that she was a feminist and that there was no conflict of interest between the rights of women and that of trans-identified males (‘one of the most stigmatised groups in society’). Dangers to women came from abusive men. You get bad people in every group in society. We shouldn’t tar all trans people with the same brush, just because there were a few men who did abuse the trans loophole (I’m very much paraphrasing here, obviously, there’s no way Sturgeon would dare say anything this bald, despite her beloved view of herself as a tough no nonsense talker).
Newman was quick to pick her up on the inconsistency she daren’t spell out, Isla Bryson (aka Adam Graham) had exploited the law. Sturgeon responded:
Well, no, that’s not true. No, that is not. True. One of the reasons I get so – my communication skills – I’m very candid about this in the book – desert me over Isla Bryson, is not because of any great concern I’ve got about Isla Bryson, it’s because I know that anything I say about them [meaning Bryson] immediately gets taken and applied to the whole trans community and that’s the point I’m making. Let me just take on the point. The law didn’t allow anything because the law wasn’t and isn’t on the statue books, so, by definition, it couldn’t have done that.
Sturgeon on Isla Bryson, 29 August 2025
Genius answer. Bryson didn’t exploit the law because there was no self-ID law in place!
Newman pointed out that Bryson had exploited the situation. Sturgeon said this was ‘simply not true’ and that Bryson had been treated in the same way all trans prisoners had been treated for years and years and years. Bryson had only gone to a female prison to be assessed and within two days he was back in a male prison where he belonged, said Sturgeon. There was no recognition or understanding from her that a serial rapist, who had started to identify as female post-charge, who had been ordered to be remanded in a male prison upon conviction (overruled by the Scottish Prison Service) and held no Gender Recognition Certificate, should never have been considered for the female estate in the first place, let alone be put in one.
Sturgeon also claimed that trans prisoners had been dealt with safely without incident for years prior to this episode, which also isn’t true, because Karen White (aka Stephen Wood), another serial rapist, had sexually assaulted female inmates in 2018. Yet another case which Eagle Eyes has failed to spot.
Sturgeon told us that the issue had been hijacked by people who wanted to push back on everybody’s rights (more applause). Today people wanted to push back on trans rights, tomorrow it would be gay rights, and women’s rights. Could people [on the gender critical side] honestly deny that what she said didn’t have a little bit of truth?
Newman still wanted to know: ‘Did Isla Bryson hijack the issue?’ and was she clear that ‘Isla Bryson is a man, or not?’ ‘Isla Bryson is a rapist and is in today a male prison,’ Sturgeon squawked. ‘Isla Bryson is a man?’ Newman stated quizzically. ‘I don’t care what Isla Bryson thinks they are,’ spluttered Sturgeon, mindful of his pronouns. ‘So why are you reluctant?’
Because I know whatever I say about Isla Bryson, will immediately be taken and by tomorrow’s headlines it will not be about Isla Bryson, it will be about the whole trans community and I am not going to be somebody, just to make my life easier in an interview, that helps with the pile-on on trans people. I am just not going to do it.
Nicola Sturgeon on Isla Bryson, 29 August 2025
Sturgeon got a huge round of applause and cheers for her cowardice. How on earth could Sturgeon make things worse for the trans community by admitting that Bryson was simply a man gaming the system she helped enable? Though we understand how that might make things worse for her.
And then an embarrassing woman
No progressive leftist event is complete without pouring ire on J. K. Rowling and tonight was no different, especially as Sturgeon had used Frankly to accuse the author of having to fear for her own physical safety. In response, Rowling wrote a scathing review of Frankly:
She asks in Frankly what my intentions were, in posting a picture of myself online wearing a T-shirt bearing the words: Nicola Sturgeon, Destroyer of Women’s Rights. She says this was a turning point that changed everything and made her afraid for her physical safety.
https://www.jkrowling.com/opinions/the-twilight-of-nicola-sturgeon-j-k-rowling-reviews-frankly/
Newman wanted to know what she thought of the review; anything that bought her book publicity was great and thanked Rowling through gritted teeth. Newman wanted to read out what Rowling had said – Sturgeon was ‘flat out Trumpian in her shameless denial of reality and hard facts’ and had ‘demonised and stigmatised’ survivors of sexual trauma, lesbians, women with disabilities and ‘everyone concerned about safety, privacy, fairness and dignity for girls’. She’s entitled to her views, Sturgeon said shrilly. Sturgeon also said she prides herself on robust debate but curiously decided to say -:
I am not in the business of pouring vitriol down on somebody’s head and I think in any debate, and in this debate, if you find yourself in a position of just personalising it so much on one individual, I think that starts to say more about you, than it does about me. I wouldn’t have the time, nor the inclination to do to J. K. Rowling what she seems to spend a lot of time doing and saying about me.
Nicola Sturgeon on J. K. Rowling, 29 August 2025
– instead of simply answering the question.
Newman wanted to know what the impact had been on her, on the reigniting of the ‘toxic’ debate. Sturgeon was more worried about the impact on trans people than herself, but she wanted to remind Rowling that she didn’t live on a yacht, or behind security gates, she wanted to walk around and saying things about her, potentially had consequences on her (like less book sales?).
We should be dialling down the rhetoric, not dialling it up, said Sturgeon.
Where did your life start to go wrong?
Faithfully keeping to the narrative the book follows (I’m assuming here, won’t be reading it myself), Newman tripped Sturgeon up yet again, forcing her to admit she didn’t really think anything had gone wrong. Newman reminded her that she’d had to resign in disgrace but Sturgeon is now well into the philosophical stage, only a year or so later. Post-Covid she was physically and mentally exhausted and wasn’t able to give her all to the job- she’d reached that point, she explained. Sturgeon didn’t miss it (except she clearly does).
Newman: What exactly was it that caused the resignation? Self-ID, the second referendum, Salmond-
Sturgeon interrupted before Newman could utter ’embezzlement’, exclaiming: ‘It was all of that and none of that! And it definitely wasn’t the finance thing.’
‘Well, the police did knock on your-‘
Sturgeon launched at her again. No, it wasn’t that, but she understood why people might think it was. Because of the timing.
Quite.
Self-referential as always, Sturgeon explained that she had been concerned that people were making up their minds on issues based on whether they liked her or not. If they didn’t like her, they would disagree with what she said, vice versa. People had stopped looking at the issues and were looking at her instead. She had become a polarising figure and she thought if she stepped down it would allow a reset for Scottish politics.
The progressive left needs to offer solutions
This is what needs to happen, according to Saint Nicola, in order to combat the evil of Trump and Farage. She doesn’t have any ideas or clues what those solutions might be, by the way, she just knows it’s what the progressive left needs to do. Cue mad applause from the Nicolarettes. God, they were easily pleased.
Then she said the same thing all over again. Again, absolutely no examples or substance. For example, the refugee system needed to ‘work better’ and our principal concern about it needed to be the people losing their lives on failed crossings. More mad clapping and whooping.
The remainiac moment
I knew it was coming and sure enough Sturgeon blamed Nigel Farage for Brexit. Not the 17.4 million people who voted for it, nor the MPs who voted to pass the bill which ratified the referendum question, hot on the heals of the divisive nasty Scottish Independence campaign she ran. No, it was just Nigel Farage. (What a powerful evil man he must be, eh?) Again, the crowd went wild. This was what they were here for, even Newman.
Should Labour be campaigning to rejoin the EU? asked Newman hopefully. Of course they should!, Sturgeon squealed. And then we had to have another round of bloody applause at this absurdity.
Naturally Sturgeon had no insights to offer as to how to achieve this, just tub-thumping: ‘If you’re not in politics to stand up for what you believe in, what on earth are in you politics for?’
More lunatic seal clapping.
Fighting for independence
Then Newman swooped in with a question about Scottish Independence. Sturgeon’s life had been about the fight for Independence but detractors said that Sturgeon had destroyed that chance for a generation; how did she respond to that? ‘I think it’s utter nonsense,’ and cleverly explained that Scotland would become independent once the majority of people voted for it. It was her and Salmond’s shared success that they had bought the Yes Vote to the ‘verge of victory’, which was an illustration of ‘if you were prepared to make an argument, if you were prepared to persuade people, and bring people with you, then you can …’ also lose a referendum vote, just like she and Salmond did. (The former First Minister might consider asking Farage how he ‘did’ Brexit, given he wasn’t even an MP at the time, let alone leading a country. Might learn something.)
Her hopes for the future were that Scotland would be independent, Wales more autonomous, and Ireland perhaps would be reunified. It would still be a family of nations working together though, sitting around a table, collaborating as equals, with big smiles on their faces. Never again would Scotland be dragged out of the EU against her will. Her scenario would prove to be a far healthier set of relationships across these islands. Newman didn’t probe her on the obvious; why was EU hegemony acceptable, when Westminster’s wasn’t (they never do).
Other bits and pieces
After that we had an anecdote from Sturgeon about the Queen, who she felt she got on well with, which – bearing in mind the Queen could have a conversation with anyone – means less than nothing. She’s a Republican though and as per all her political aims, had literally zero to say on what that might look like. She had just gotten a tattoo and wanted to get another, as now freed of politics she was having a ‘delayed adolescence’ (an interesting turn of phrase). She might foster but only if her life calms down sufficiently but -guess what- doesn’t think it ever will. Redistribution of wealth was the answer to all our problems (the perfect moment to shout out about the camper van but I am such a coward).
The SNP had their own ideas about wealth distribution …
Farage was basically controlling the narrative and no one was stopping him. She thought he could be beaten at the next General Election. Then she told an anecdote about the time she had encountered his ‘fragile brittle ego’. It was the first of the 2015 leader debates, everyone was in their own thoughts and preparing, except Farage who boasted about how many drinks he had just had in the green room. It’s ten years later and Sturgeon is still clearly seething that he chose to relax himself with alcohol.
There was only one audience question which was slightly critical: ‘To what extent could the public be trusted to choose outcomes which are best for them? We have seen the Scottish Referendum and the Brexit Vote outcomes go against the desired results of the politicians who pushed them.’ Sturgeon weasely admitted that politicians often didn’t succeed in making arguments which influenced people sufficiently. Democracy could be a pretty crap system at times, until you started to consider the alternatives- democracy was under threat all over the world and in the UK right now. Oh, and she isn’t really interested in reading memoirs much.
Her biggest regret? Looking back over her life, there were lots of things she wish she had done better or differently but she had gotten to a stage in life where she wasn’t going to be consumed with the past. She was looking to the future and planning for it, unlike other people, who did ‘lengthy reviews‘ and had ‘too much time on their hands’.
So, that’s Nicola Sturgeon then. A petty woman, who can’t answer a single question straight.
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The Lies They Tell 
What a tedious person. Will she be prosecuted?
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It doesn’t look like it. I suspect that Murrell is loyal enough to her and the party to get her out of the stink.
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