A formidable vote winner, but as the twilight surely nears what does Sturgeon have to show for it all?
IHAVE darkened the door of just the one SnP conference but none, I fancy, could have proved more instructive than the edition of november 2014 which I witnessed from the Press seats.
On its opening day, nicola Sturgeon was confirmed as the new leader of the party. The following week, she would be installed as First Minister.
‘nicola, your contribution to where this party now stands has already been immense,’ said the outgoing leader – a man the SnP no longer cares to talk about. ‘Your future contribution – I have no doubt – will be to make history.’
The applause assailed the ears like a thunderclap.
Eight weeks had passed since the referendum result that was a dagger to the heart of the party’s raison d’être but the mood was, to Unionist observers, disconcertingly buoyant.
Rout
In that time the party’s membership had swelled from 26,000 to 86,000. Polling – which proved on the money – suggested a rout by the SnP at the next Westminster election. And there was already talk of the result being very different at the next referendum which, surely to goodness, couldn’t be too far away now.
There was a touching video tribute to Alex Salmond summarising his best bits – the kind you got on I’m A Celebrity or Big Brother on booting-out day – and general consensus that we wouldnae see his like again.
Ah, yes, innocent times. I almost miss them myself.
I was not present this week at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe event, All Talk, in which Miss Sturgeon expounded on her past and future as First Minister, but then, it seems very few were. The chasms of emptiness in the auditorium at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre were reminiscent of football stadiums in May when the home support knows the season’s a bogey, that there’s nothing to play for but pride.
And, in stark contrast to the unbridled optimism that Miss Sturgeon channelled at the beginning of her leadership journey in 2014, there was equivocation and undertones of bitter regret.
‘Who in this room can say with 100 per cent certainty what we’ll be doing four years from now?’ came the testy response when broadcaster Iain Dale asked if she would lead her party into the next Holyrood election in 2026.
‘The default position is that of course I’ll fight the next election, but I will make a judgment on that nearer the time.’
When political leaders indicate they are keeping their options open about remaining in post for the next election, you can guarantee that exit strategies are already embedded in their thoughts.
When they respond, ostensibly quite reasonably, that no one knows what the future holds, you know at once their thoughts are straying to a time when their leadership days are behind them.
For the fully committed, eyes-on-the-prize political leader there is only one correct response to inquiries of this nature and it is an unequivocal ‘Yes’.
People are aware things may not work out that way. Few careers are as unpredictable as those of politicians. The further up the tree they climb, the wobblier the branches, the gustier the gales. none of that is news to us.
But Miss Sturgeon failing to say she fully intends to lead her party into the next Holyrood election? That is news. Indeed, for her, I suspect, it signals a degree of rueful acceptance.
If independence ever comes, her words told me, it won’t be on her watch. That is the painful reality imbuing answers notably lacking in full-steamahead bravado.
People in her job must be sure they have the ‘energy’ and the ‘appetite’ for it, ‘that they’re prepared to make the enormous commitment’, continued the First Minister – again reasonably. Yet to sprinkle an answer to such a key question with words such as ‘energy’, ‘appetite’ and ‘commitment’ without proclaiming she retains all three in spades is practically to signal the opposite.
She should perhaps be congratulated on her honesty. A small part of me even sympathises with her. not even her direst foes question Miss Sturgeon’s work ethic and I would wonder about the soundness of mind of a First Minister who, eight years into the job, didn’t daydream about a political afterlife.
During that time, she has lost her closest ally, the supposed giant of the SnP on whose shoulders she stood to rise to her current position.
Has she spoken to the former FM since he was cleared in the High Court of sexual assault? ‘nope.’
Did she anticipate ever speaking to him again? ‘nope.’
We can but guess at the oceans of personal turmoil that lie behind these clipped answers
But deeper still, surely, are the reservoirs of regret over eight years in which she has failed to live up to her predecessor’s billing.
Fingers
Miss Sturgeon has certainly made history – but not the kind Mr Salmond was talking about.
In her first electoral outing, she all but cleared the Westminster benches of Scottish MPs representing any party but her own. Seven elections later, she has yet to lose one.
She has proved a formidable vote winner and rather more adept at holding on to power than the three Tory prime ministers whose fingers it has slipped through during her time in Bute House.
But what is there to show for it? Independence, for its supporters, remains that ungraspable pot of gold at the rainbow’s end, forever in the distance.
At best, with favourable legal winds, nationalists will have the chance to vote in an ‘advisory’ referendum on independence which would have no constitutional effect but, assures Miss Sturgeon, would provide a helpful reading on Scotland’s attitude to leaving the UK.
It would, of course, do nothing of the sort. Why would Unionists participate in a referendum which fulfils no function beyond providing polling data for the SnP? We already know what the polls say. They say now is not the time. I will have no part in a pretend referendum whose only purpose is to dial up nationalist rhetoric.
Misfortune
It will, then, almost certainly not be Miss Sturgeon who leads Scotland, blinking, into the new dawn of independence, should such a misfortune ever befall it. If there is a legacy in which to take pride, it must lie elsewhere.
In education, perhaps? You will remember this was the area of government on which she asked to be judged. The ‘defining mission’ of her First Ministership was to substantially eliminate the attainment gap which gave children from wealthier backgrounds better chances of academic success.
How is that going? Badly. The school exam results issued this week found the pass rate falling and the attainment gap widening. The thing she dedicated herself to making better has, during her tenure, become worse. not much pride to salvage there.
Our towns and cities are dirtier, our public services shrunken, our transport system chaotic and unreliable and our ageing ferries rustier and increasingly out of whack.
Replacement vessels? Don’t even go there. Indeed, if you are an islander, best not try to go anywhere.
Yes, much to reflect on between the new morning of SnP conference 2014 and the late afternoon of Edinburgh Festival Fringe 2022. This wasn’t how it was meant to be.
And twilight, you feel, is not too far away.