Chapterandverse

So Nicola Sturgeon’s close friend and fellow secessionist, Val Mcdermid, believes the former first minister is criticised so robustly because she's a woman. Utter drivel!

From my perspective, there are numerous reasons to find fault with her, yet none of them relates to her gender.

What about, instead, her own admission that, for her, an independence referendum “transcends” oil, Brexit, and the economy?

How about her ceaseless obsession with the constitution, with a continual focus on manufacturing grievances with Westminster rather than concentrating on what was her job – managing Scotland’s public services?

And what about the consequences of this? Despite the efforts of frontline professionals, after her years in power we’re left with a desperately struggling NHS, a severely weakened education system (though she claimed it to be her “priority”), inadequate public transport, a dangerous A9 and ferry procurement so badly handled as to be risible.

And yet income tax grew to even higher levels than elsewhere in the UK on her watch, with negligible payback in terms of improvement in public services. Sturgeon was, and doubtless still is, big on virtuesignalling and poor on delivery. Take climate change as an example – ambitious targets set, invariably slightly more challenging than England’s, yet proving to be unachievable.

Mcdermid is a hugely talented fiction author – I have a more than sneaking suspicion that she knows claiming Sturgeon is disliked because she’s a woman is a piece of fiction too.

Martin Redfern Melrose, Roxburghshire