She speaks so well. I can't imagine another current political UK leader speaking with this clarity.
Yes Blackford is Wesminster. I would have put money on Kate Forbes but she is on mat leave and has some quite socially conservative views. It will likely be one of cabinet but there will be a process to choose a new leader.
Tad egocentric. I'm glad she's away, perhaps you southerners could take her.
We don't want independence, look at how Brexit worked out. She's deluded.
I'm not an SNP voter but she has been good - Scotland is a nicer place to live than England and a lot of that is to do with SNP policy. They really need to turn around health and education though, maybe a new leader will let them focus on that?
I find most people with objections to her base it purely on personality and appearance rather than policy (I'm amazed we haven't had a post calling her wee Jimmy Cranky yet 🙄 ).
She's done a lot of good things for making Scotland a more progressive place. The Gender Bill seems a funny hill to die on though - I'm exactly the sort of lefty it was meant to please and it made me uneasy. There were flaws in it that were insurmountable and it caused such chaos for such a small group of people (although I'm convinced I will fall on the wrong side of history for that).
I'll be sad to see her go but hopeful someone like her, rather than Salmond, can be found.
I cannot stand Blackford! Pompous windbag
He can argue well though but probably is overshadowed by his own entertainment value.
Good speech from Sturgeon.
Do any of the rather vocal detractors on here think that they could have done a better job during the crises of the last few years..?
No..
What utter drivel, are you only allowed to criticize if you could do a better job yourself? No.
What a dark day for UK politics. I've always thought that she is hugely impressive as a political leader, and if I could have voted for her I definitely would have
I reckon she's just had enough - 8 years of taking a beating from the entire UK Govt & Establishment.
She speaks so well. I can’t imagine another current political UK leader speaking with this clarity.
Absolutely. It's because she doesn't talk out of her arse!
To echo a few others on here, I don’t know a great deal about Scottish politics and I know she has had some issues, but she comes across as genuine, competent, statesmanlike and a leader. She is streets ahead of anyone in Westminster in that regard. It seems a shame for politics to lose such a set of skills and attributes.
That is not naive, I think it is a true reflection of her and many others in politics up here. I too am not a huge fan of SNP, but Nicola is a person to be respected for her values and service in my view.
Not perfect, but operate in a different way and with a deal more collaboration and respect across the nation and parties.
Not convinced on independence but I think she was a capable leader, far better than starmer or whatever incarnation of Tory PM we have recently been burdened with
Sad to see her go tbh.
I reckon she’s just had enough – 8 years of taking a beating from the entire UK Govt & Establishment.
I think you are spot on. It must be a relentless job, she’s put in a big shift.
I quite liked her. I also like the SNP. But I am now hoping this allows Labour to gain a bit more ground in Scotland and thus have a better chance of taking control of the UK.
8 years taking a kicking from a large part of Scottish and UK politics and the general population, that's got to take it's toll on anyone. I'm not a devout supporter of the SNP or Sturgeon, but cannot deny how impressive she's been as a leader throughout her time as FM. Actually, not just as a leader but as a person/human being - much more relatable than most others. I wish there were more like her in politics.
What utter drivel, are you only allowed to criticize if you could do a better job yourself? No.
Ok - look at it slightly differently - who would you rather have had for the last 8 yrs? There's not been a single Scottish party leader in the last 8 years, regardless of the political flavour who would have done a better job.
Ok – look at it slightly differently – who would you rather have had for the last 8 yrs? There’s not been a single Scottish party leader in the last 8 years, regardless of the political flavour who would have done a better job.
Being the best of a bad lot is not something to celebrate.
She has her good points, no doubt. She spoke well and looked good compared to the crop at the top in westminster.
This does not excuse her failings especially in education and NHS. Her Indy campaign was far too similar to the Brexit campaign for me, ie blame the tories and claim everything will be better if we vote to leave despite there being very obvious flaws in the plan that they either denied or refused to debate.
By Glenn Campbell
Political EditorI wonder how the reporter knew… perhaps he heard it on the wire?
What's the linesman for Notts County got to do with it?
I'm saddened, which has surprised me a bit. It used to be the case that countries with women leaders were better and more compassionately run. But along came Theresa May and Liz Truss..
Just another thought.
Without counting any chickens, a Labour win at the next GE would very likely see public support for Scottish Independence soften.
Maybe she can also see that window closing and CBA carrying on in a weaker position.
But I still reckon it's mostly the party finances.
All politicians eventually fail, it is the business. She has chosen to go on her own terms, rather than risk seeing he 'power' reduced at the next elections, due to falling support for the SNP. She's done well to be at the top for so long, but eventually it all catches up.
Whether she was a success or failure or a mixture of the two, won't be judged for many years. However recently the noise levels about he decision making have got so loud that it has dominated everything. If the SNP is to achieve its goal, then perhaps a period of understanding why they have not succeeded is critical. When Sturgeon in charge this was never going to happen
Flynn as Westminster leader was the writing on the wall. The SNP has been tightly controlled for years and that definitely wasn't part of the plan. The upcoming SNP Conference was likely to be very uncomfortable for the current leadership.
A9/A96 ferries, DRS, GRR, public energy company, land reform. All failures and at the door of the Scottish Govt. NHS, education and others also less than ideal but definitely funding issues around that and unarguable that Covid had an impact, as has Brexit. Missing £600k now, eventually, being investigated. And support for independence, the #1 issue for voting SNP, has gone nowhere.
She's been a better advocate for the SNP and independence than Salmond was. Over the years however, events and the right wing media have resulted in her becoming probably as much of a divisive figure as he was.
Keeping the SNP focused and disciplined after the 2014 referendum was probably quite a tough task but that discipline does seem to have dropped more recently. There's a chance that the leadership contest could reinvigorate the party, restore its discipline and give it a common sense of direction, but also a chance that it'll expose and widen any existing fault lines. And given half the chance I wouldn't be surprised if Alex Salmond will try and exacerbate those for his own personal political advantage.
Well, all I can say is .. ooh.
Big shoes to fill !!
There’s a lot of rose tinted stuff being said, but she’s been a politician most of her life, not just leader for 8, she’s got as many negatives as positives and she’s a politician through and through, the problem now is that she was effective in her role, whoever comes in is a step down from her and will not hold the same power in the party. It’s the same with parliament, they all know Flynn is not at the same level of Blackford, yes he was an acquired taste, but you saw he had actual respect from other parties.
The SNP need to get back into a rhythm soon, I hope they don’t get taken over by this new breed of career politicians, end of the day they’re all politicians, but the wrong choice now would be critical.
I'm surprised she lasted this long. The party has been stagnant. They need people that are not from the salmond/sturgeon school of politics. Hopefully it won't be Swinny or Yusif that get the leadership and that any new person gets rid of Summerville as education minister.
Did she really ever do anything of note while in power?
Englishman here, so take all the below with that in mind…
The SNP have an issue where there are two, pretty much unrelated and sometimes contradictory issues.
1 - governing Scotland in the best interests of the populace, ie where they sit on the political spectrum
2 - Scottish independence
As we saw in the UK in the last general election, getting people to elect their mp (and by extension, leader) based on a single divisive issue - brexit - which cuts across the traditional party lines; leads to people not getting the government they want on every other issue.
How many unionist Scots won’t vote snp, despite agreeing with all their other policies? And the inverse?
My main concern now is what happens at the next GE.
With FPTP in most areas the choice was Tory or SNP and I would reluctantly vote SNP to oust the Tories. I figured it was better to have SNP MP's in westminster banging the drum for scotland as opposed to Tory. I reasoned that I could always vote no in an Indy ref.
What will happen now? Will people like me continue to vote SNP for the same reasons? Will those who vote tory because they are anti Indy as opposed to pro tory move towards Labour or Lib dems? My hope is that all those who vote tacitly to oust the party they dislike more take a risk and vote for the party they actually want resulting in a Labour win at westminster that is helped by the people of Scotland as opposed to despite the people of Scotland. The worst thing I can see happening is Scotland delivers a fair few more Tory MP's.
I reckon she's had the briefing from MI5 about the imminent alien invasion and she's thought 'sod that!' and decided to retire to a remote croft in the highlands to live out her last days in peace.
No-one's perfect and she is no exception to that, but she's clearly streets ahead of any other political leader of recent years in the UK.
Of course haters will always find something to hate. But politics isn't about perfection, it's about being better overall than the alternatives.
I appreciate that she's a good communicator, but I'm struggling to understand why anyone is suggesting she was a great politician? Her whole tenure revolved around trying to separate her country from the UK, which clearly failed....and she has ruled over a country who's healthcare and education have gone down the tubes.
ROFL - like MI5 brief the Scottish Government
"healthcare ... gone down the tubes."
you've been reading too much tory press and BBC criticism. The situation in Scotland is not actually that bad in general; I work in a relevant sphere with first hand knowledge and have loads of pals getting exactly what they need, when they need it. Plus no-one having any particularly bad experiences. So perhaps don't believe everything you read in the press. Sure, it's not perfect but a hell of a lot better than the first hand experiences described down south.
Anyway, back to Nicola. She must be utterly exhausted.
she has ruled over a country who’s healthcare and education have gone down the tubes
You've been at the right wing Kool-aid for a bit too long. NHS Scotland is still dealing from the impact of Covid on other services, and education has problems but hardly in crisis. Like it or not, the Scottish Government has limited resources to mitigate the impact of Westminster economic policy, and when central government funding is being squeezed across the UK as a whole, those limited resources are only ever going to go so far.
As for people speculating on a Labour resurgence in Scotland, well perhaps if they were less of a rolling clown show, they'd have more chance of recovering some vote share. I certainly won't forget that they chose to side with the Tories and inflicted Theresa May's government on the UK anytime soon; I'd rather just not bother voting than support Scottish Labour in their current form.
What did she say as she finished?
Fandabbiedozy!
Amazing news - an absolute liability and a terrible politician.
“healthcare … gone down the tubes.”
you’ve been reading too much tory press and BBC criticism.
Try and get a vasectomy via NHS Grampian as just one example.
3 year waiting list with Grampian currently not doing any.
Defend her all you like, but Health is a devolved matter and the NHS is worse under her tenure. If it was a Tory FM the same people would be up in arms about the current situations.
This place is slipping three pages in and this hasn't been posted yet...! 🙂
[img] 
[/img]
Interesting how there's a couple of sleeper users that seem to have popped out just for this post, anyone else read this story and wonder if STW is also on the social-media list?
I see the big swinging dicks are exposing themselves on this thread, given the choice between living in SNP led Scotland vs the car crash of English politics over the previous 12 years I’m very happy that we’ve had a progressive social led First Minister attempting to do her best for the country.
there’s a couple of sleeper users
It's just a big (and unexpected) news item about a leading politician that elicits strong opinions (for many reasons)... will lead to some people posting who rarely normally bother. Nothing suspicious about that really.
3 year waiting list with Grampian currently not doing any.
guessing because it isn't an essential operation so they are prioritising others.
Try and get a vasectomy via NHS Grampian as just one example.
3 year waiting list with Grampian currently not doing any.
Defend her all you like, but Health is a devolved matter and the NHS is worse under her tenure. If it was a Tory FM the same people would be up in arms about the current situations.
Can you possibly imagine any global healthcare crisis over the last couple of years that might have caused some problems for non-urgent surgical waiting lists.
Yes, health is a devolved issue, but at the end of the day Scottish Government gets a set budget amount and has to try and cover services - Westminster has the purse strings, and they're currently held tight by a Tory government committed to undermining the NHS across the UK in order to pave the way for increasing privatisation. I'm in the privileged situation of having access to private health care - guess what, I can see one of the same 'NHS'surgeons in a matter of weeks, not years. Doesn't matter who's in power at Holyrood, Westminster has ultimate control.
I think she will be a very difficult act to follow. None of the contenders mentioned have anything like her stature indeed I find most of them repellant
I also think this will be used by factions withing the party to try to change the direction. Sturgeon took the party towards a more leftwing socially liberal approach and was ( IMO rightly) cautious on what she did to get independence
There are a number of possible splitlines. There are the fundamentalist independence folk who seem to believe she would rather be a provincial governer than the first PM of an independent Scotland. Now to me this has no logic and is a conspiracy theory but there is no doubt its a position held by a significant % of the party and the wider movement. Then there is the other side of this - pragmatists or incrementalists.
Then there is the faultline between the younger more urban SNP supporters who tend to be pretty leftwing and the older more rural ones who tend to be more conservative especially on social issues. In recent years the lefties have taken more and more power even finally sidelining Fergus Ewing - the shooters friend who epitomises the "tartan tories" I'm sure that faction will want to regain the power they have lost
Then there is the split on "green" issues. a lot of dissatisfaction with the coalition with the greens and a lot of strife over oil with neither side being happy with compromises made. Personally I want the Scots government to be more green but the power of the oil lobby is huge and the Greens have been pretty amaturish and expended huge political capital on the gender reform stuff instead of their core mission
Sturgeon however remains a consomethinge politician - she has left enough time to get this all sorted and out of the way before the next election but it will be very interesting to see which factions on which issues gain and lose thru this
IMO all political parties and politicians lose their way after 10 years or so and in many ways its high time for a bit of a change in Scots politics - but the utter dross from the unionist parties makes it hard to see them making inroads unless they reactivate the Tory / labour pact. Sarwar sounded a decent man with his statement over Sturgeons announcement but Ross just spouted off like the numpty he is.
Sarwar seems to understand the need for a distinctly scottish approach but keeps on getting slapped down by westminster. Until we have a properly independent scottish labour party I don't see them making significant inroads. tories are a completely busted flush and the Lib Dems are reduced to their strongholds with no chance of many gains
My goodness tho - I hope the SNP do find a decent leader. Scotland needs one. Ben McPherson has impressed me as my local MSP but he has little experience but someone like him not tied to the baggage of the past might be a good candidate
