So here we are. The end of an era. The indomitable Nicola Sturgeon has announced she will be stepping back from frontline politics, citing the incessant pressures, scrutiny, and constant demands of being at the very top of Scottish (and indeed British) politics for almost a decade and a half.
Politics has been moving ever faster over the last few decades, and governments and leading politicians have had a tendency to lurch from crisis to crisis, with nary a moment to breathe. In this, Nicola Sturgeon stood out from the rest. She has been stable, competent and dependable. You didn’t have to agree with her to see that she was committed to the job, and where the UK government and the Tory and labour parties have engaged in 8 years of brutal infighting and backstabbing – treating Westminster as a cage match rather than the oldest ‘functioning’ parliament in the world – Sturgeon and her government were getting on with the day job.
This is not to say that the SNP has not had any crises, nor the Scottish government any cock ups. Far from it, but I’d challenge any other party to maintain a solid record for 15 years in government and still be winning elections by landslides. The Tories have been in power for a mere 12 years and in that time they’ve trashed the UK economy, presided over the worst slashing of workers rights we’ve seen in decades, started a rammy that they have no hope of winning with every union in the country, ‘delivered’ a Brexit that will do nothing but make us poorer, both culturally and financially, and taken a chainsaw to standards in public life. The SNP meanwhile screwed up the contract for building two ferries. These are not the same and anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows it.
But her personal record is as close to flawless as you’ll find from any frontbench politician in the UK, certainly far better than any of the weasels and shitebags on the Tory benches. Despite this she has decided to step down because she didn’t have enough left in the tank, hounded out by a vitriolic press and an opposition who hate her personally, rather than anything she stands for.
Walk out onto the street and start asking people why they do/don’t vote for the SNP and I give you 2 minutes before you come across someone who just doesn’t like Nicola Sturgeon. They can’t explain why, they just don’t like her. And they take this personal, imagined, irrational dislike, to someone they’ve never met who has actively tried to improve their lives, and they apply it to every political decision they make and every ballot they cast. Very few people are truly neutral on Nicola Sturgeon, she is hated, or she is loved.
Stepping down was the right decision, quite frankly she deserves a break. She’s put in 15 years of hard graft and who wouldn’t want a holiday after that? What matters is that she has put in a wealth of hard work and we are the ones who have benefitted from her time in post. Whoever comes next has big boots to fill and in this we must learn from our mistakes. We cannot have frontline politicians being hounded out of their posts by vitriol and hatred from the press and public. We need a return to the civil debate of years gone by, a return to a grown up, mature political discourse, which Sturgeon has done much to embody over the years. In British politics she was the adult in the room. We’d better find someone to replace her before the children start drawing on the walls.
“First Minister Nicola Sturgeon” by Scottish Government images is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
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Nicola Sturgeon: A record to be proud of
So here we are. The end of an era. The indomitable Nicola Sturgeon has announced she will be stepping back from frontline politics, citing the incessant pressures, scrutiny, and constant demands of being at the very top of Scottish (and indeed British) politics for almost a decade and a half.
Politics has been moving ever faster over the last few decades, and governments and leading politicians have had a tendency to lurch from crisis to crisis, with nary a moment to breathe. In this, Nicola Sturgeon stood out from the rest. She has been stable, competent and dependable. You didn’t have to agree with her to see that she was committed to the job, and where the UK government and the Tory and labour parties have engaged in 8 years of brutal infighting and backstabbing – treating Westminster as a cage match rather than the oldest ‘functioning’ parliament in the world – Sturgeon and her government were getting on with the day job.
This is not to say that the SNP has not had any crises, nor the Scottish government any cock ups. Far from it, but I’d challenge any other party to maintain a solid record for 15 years in government and still be winning elections by landslides. The Tories have been in power for a mere 12 years and in that time they’ve trashed the UK economy, presided over the worst slashing of workers rights we’ve seen in decades, started a rammy that they have no hope of winning with every union in the country, ‘delivered’ a Brexit that will do nothing but make us poorer, both culturally and financially, and taken a chainsaw to standards in public life. The SNP meanwhile screwed up the contract for building two ferries. These are not the same and anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows it.
But her personal record is as close to flawless as you’ll find from any frontbench politician in the UK, certainly far better than any of the weasels and shitebags on the Tory benches. Despite this she has decided to step down because she didn’t have enough left in the tank, hounded out by a vitriolic press and an opposition who hate her personally, rather than anything she stands for.
Walk out onto the street and start asking people why they do/don’t vote for the SNP and I give you 2 minutes before you come across someone who just doesn’t like Nicola Sturgeon. They can’t explain why, they just don’t like her. And they take this personal, imagined, irrational dislike, to someone they’ve never met who has actively tried to improve their lives, and they apply it to every political decision they make and every ballot they cast. Very few people are truly neutral on Nicola Sturgeon, she is hated, or she is loved.
Stepping down was the right decision, quite frankly she deserves a break. She’s put in 15 years of hard graft and who wouldn’t want a holiday after that? What matters is that she has put in a wealth of hard work and we are the ones who have benefitted from her time in post. Whoever comes next has big boots to fill and in this we must learn from our mistakes. We cannot have frontline politicians being hounded out of their posts by vitriol and hatred from the press and public. We need a return to the civil debate of years gone by, a return to a grown up, mature political discourse, which Sturgeon has done much to embody over the years. In British politics she was the adult in the room. We’d better find someone to replace her before the children start drawing on the walls.
“First Minister Nicola Sturgeon” by Scottish Government images is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0.
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