Alistair Grant, Rachel Amery and Alexander Brown discuss Nicola Sturgeon's contested legacy after she announced her decision to stand down as an MSP next year. Plus, Alex has the latest on a growing Labour rebellion in Westminster over expected cuts to the benefits system.
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00:00Absolute horror show that the Conservatives have inflicted on working people in this country,
00:10on our public services, on anybody paying a mortgage. Every one of them has been punished
00:16by the incompetence of the Conservative Government.
00:21That is more money for Scotland's NHS, schools and other vital public services. The fact
00:26is that this is an incompetent SNP Government that is bad with taxpayers' money. So more
00:32of the same won't cut it.
00:33I tell you what, John Swinney's got some front. The man whose dirty fingerprints are all over
00:38the tram scandal, the ferry scandal, the Salmond Inquiry scandal, the named person scandal.
00:44How much has this man's mistakes cost all of us?
00:48The Steamy, a politics podcast from The Scotsman.
00:56Hello and welcome to The Steamy, The Scotsman's politics podcast. I'm Alistair Grant, The
01:05Scotsman's political editor, and I'm joined today, as always, by Rachel Aimery, The Scotsman's
01:10politics correspondent, and by Alexander Brown, The Scotsman's Westminster correspondent,
01:14to discuss another busy week, I think it's fair to say, in Scottish and UK politics.
01:19The big news in Holyrood was the announcement by former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon that
01:23she will not seek re-election in next year's Holyrood election. We'll discuss her mixed
01:29legacy, I think it's fair to say, and what her absence might mean for the SNP and for
01:34the wider world of Scottish politics. We'll also talk later on about the battles facing
01:39Sir Keir Starmer as he prepares to announce cuts to the benefits system ahead of the Spring
01:44statement later on this month.
01:46But first, few politicians in the UK, I think it's fair to say, could match Nicola Sturgeon
01:51in her prime. She was a political titan, with an extraordinary ability to communicate
01:56with the public, and approval ratings that were the envy of her political rivals. Nevertheless,
02:02she will leave Scottish politics next year as a divisive figure with a contested legacy,
02:07adored by some, despised by others, with the events of the past couple of years also casting
02:13a shadow over the SNP that has yet to lift.
02:16Here's Nicola Sturgeon speaking about her decision to reporters on Wednesday.
02:21But, you know, I've been a member of the Scottish Parliament for, well by the time
02:26of the election next year it will be 27 years, that is almost exactly half my life. Being
02:32one of the original members of Holyrood, serving for that length of time, representing Glasgow
02:37Southside, the best constituency in Scotland, all of that has been a privilege beyond words
02:43and a privilege beyond the imagination of the 16-year-old me who joined the SNP all
02:48these years ago. So it's been an amazingly fulfilling first phase of my life, but the
02:54time is right for me to turn the page on that and to embrace the opportunities that lie
02:59ahead. And while I'll be sad to leave Holyrood behind, I am looking forward to all that the
03:04future has to offer.
03:05Sadness, anticipation, but any sense of relief at finally being able to announce this?
03:10Yeah, I think when you're wrestling with a decision, even if deep down inside you know
03:14what the decision is going to be, and I think I've known that for a while, once you say
03:19it out loud, you feel a sense of relief. So yeah, of course I feel that.
03:25That was Nicola Sturgeon speaking to reporters about her decision to stand down in next year's
03:30Holyrood election. And Rachel, it's fair to say this announcement was not unexpected,
03:34was it?
03:35Yes, I think particularly in sort of the Holyrood bubble, everyone has kind of been saying when
03:40is she going to announce it? When is it coming? I think it would be more of a surprise if
03:44she turned up yesterday and said, actually, I'm going to stand for re-election. That would
03:49have been a much bigger surprise to everybody, I think, at this point. Given the fact that
03:54Humza Yousaf is standing down, given the fact that she stood in as First Minister quite
03:58a while ago now, when you think about it, she's been very absent from Holyrood in the
04:01past year or so. It's not a surprise, really. She's clearly lined up a career outside of
04:07Holyrood for herself already. So yeah, I think this was on the cards, on the books,
04:13and it just was a case of when it was going to be announced rather than if it was going
04:17to be announced. But what's quite interesting is to see the full reaction that people have
04:22had to this, because as you said, a very divisive figure. And one thing I thought was very interesting
04:26was actually last week. Now, if you were to look on social media, particularly on newspaper
04:32article comments, you would think that everybody hated her. And last week I was watching a
04:37speech with her at the Housing Festival, and her speech was all about how to be a good leader,
04:41and what makes a good leadership. See, after that speech, everybody wanted a picture taken
04:46with her. Everybody was wanting to come and say hello to her and shake her hand. It was like
04:51seeing her a few years ago when she was in that huge sort of fandom around her. That still exists
04:58in real life. So it was just really interesting to sort of contrast what I saw last week at that
05:04speech to what you see on social media and how people react to her, particularly some of the
05:09scenes on social media that we saw over the weekend when she was booed going into an International
05:13Women's Day event in Edinburgh. So, yeah, still a very divisive figure, but clearly those who
05:19who do support her still are clearly still very, very much in fond of her.
05:24Yeah, I think that's totally true. I mean, I went to an event with Nicola Sturgeon and Val
05:28McDiarmid that they were doing, I think towards the end of last year, where they're discussing
05:32books. They've got a number of these events lined up, I think. And I was sitting beside someone who
05:37was a kind of international student who was at Edinburgh Uni, who was what can only be described
05:41as a Nicola Sturgeon superfan. They literally could not believe that they were in the same
05:44room as her. And obviously the people going to these kind of events are going to be people who
05:49like Nicola Sturgeon, who kind of like her, what she stands for, what they kind of think she stands
05:54for. But I just don't think you would get that level of kind of, you know, for want of a better
05:58word, fandom with many other politicians. It just doesn't exist. You wouldn't get those kind of
06:02people who, you know, love John Swinney in that way. It's just, it's so rare for a politician
06:08to have that. And I should say to people as well that Rachel is currently kind of beaming into us
06:12from a car because she's going to an event that Kimmy Badenoch, the Scottish Tory, sorry, the UK
06:18Tory leader is doing in Scotland. So thanks very much, Rachel, for joining us on the podcast.
06:24But I mean, just to stay on this, I think Nicola Sturgeon's legacy could fairly be described
06:29as mixed, couldn't it, Rachel? I mean, she herself would point to things like
06:32the Scottish child payment, which was described as a game changer by poverty campaigners. She'd
06:37point to things like the expansion of early learning and childcare. But her critics would
06:41highlight areas where some of that progressive rhetoric failed to match reality. You know,
06:46Nicola Sturgeon said that education was her defining mission, yet her pledge to substantially
06:51eliminate the attainment gap fell far short. Drug deaths are an enduring source of shame in
06:57Scotland. There's a row over her gender reform plans. What do you make of her legacy and how
07:04do you think it will be judged in years to come? Yeah, I think Nicola Sturgeon will automatically
07:09go into the history books simply because she was the first female First Minister, and because she
07:15was the longest serving First Minister, and because she was a First Minister when it was
07:18the coronavirus pandemic. So those three things alone have kind of secured her place in the
07:22history books, regardless of what actually happened. There have been some criticisms,
07:26though, that saying she was eight years that she was in charge, I believe, very, very long time,
07:31perhaps not as much was achieved during those eight years as perhaps some people might want to
07:36see, particularly on issues such as education and drugs deaths in particular. Of course, we had that
07:41famous quote during the 2021 parliamentary elections of, I took my eye off the ball on
07:47drug deaths. So she will face some criticism in terms of her legacy for that. For those who are
07:52in the SNP, for those who support the independence movement, obviously one of their big criticisms
07:56will be the failure to get independence, at least the failure to get a second independence referendum.
08:02So that will be seen in some corners as a failure as well. And more recently, of course,
08:08she was the First Minister who tried to bring forward gender reforms in Parliament,
08:13which we should remember was actually passed by majority of MSPs at the time, albeit then
08:18blocked by the UK government. There'll be a lot of people who say that they can never forgive her
08:23for that. They are very angry at her for bringing those reforms forward. But quite interestingly,
08:28yesterday she was sort of standing strong on that and saying that no, she has no regrets about
08:32bringing those in and still supports this very sort of small community, small marginalised community
08:37in Scotland. So I think that for a lot of people will also be one of her lasting legacies, whether
08:42good or bad. Yeah, and just staying on you, Rachel, since you probably have to shoot off at
08:47some point. On that issue of independence, you're quite right, there'll be a lot of criticism that
08:52she failed to kind of meaningfully shift the dial on independence. Perhaps in the face of UK
08:58intransigence, it was always a bit of a tall order, but Nicola Sturgeon repeatedly raised
09:02false expectations. And I think her idea of that fighting the general election as a de facto
09:07referendum fell apart under the merest whiff of scrutiny. So on that issue, I mean, what do you
09:14kind of think about that? I mean, it is the defining mission of the SNP to push forward
09:20the case for independence and Nicola Sturgeon arguably failed to do that. Yeah, absolutely.
09:26I mean, when you think about there's lots of photographs of her in front of Bute House with
09:31all the different prime ministers who came and went during her tenure as first minister,
09:35there was a newspaper cartoon as well of her leading a boat to pull people away from the rest
09:40of the UK because of how sort of chaotic things were in Westminster. I think a lot of people
09:45were thinking if anyone's going to do it, it's going to be her. And like you said, there's lots
09:50of false expectations. There was a referendum date and I can't even remember when that date was now,
09:55but there was a date in the diary as to when it was going to happen. There was a clear sort of
09:59plan to have these building a new Scotland papers, all these many, many independence papers, which
10:05cost a lot of money and nobody really read them. And yeah, so there was a lot of sort of probably
10:11false starts, false promises that never really went anywhere. And so a lot of people will be
10:17questioning that one, too. But given that there was a conservative government in Westminster who
10:23were very against a second referendum and, of course, many years lost to the coronavirus
10:29pandemic as well, it's perhaps not, maybe it's too harsh to say that she was completely
10:35responsible for not having brought forward a second independence referendum. I don't know if
10:40anybody else in Holyrood has done a better job when it comes to trying to secure that referendum,
10:45because as you were saying, there was very few others who were able to sort of bring that sort
10:50of momentum that Nicola Sturgeon did in Holyrood. So it's probably a criticism of those in the
10:55independence movement, but could anyone have done a better job? Probably not.
10:59And you touched on the gender reforms. It's obviously proved a hugely controversial issue
11:03over recent years. Nicola Sturgeon was repeatedly asked about this towards the end of her time as
11:08First Minister. I mean, kind of famously, she was asked about the Isla Bryson case. This was a
11:12double rapist who I think formally went under the name Adam Graham. And she refused to say
11:17whether Isla Bryson was a man or a woman and basically had this kind of form of words that
11:21that individual is a rapist. For lots of people, I suppose, who follow this particular debate
11:28closely, that will be what they hold Nicola Sturgeon accountable for in some ways.
11:34Yes, and you can tell that she doesn't want that to be the sort of the dark cloud over her head.
11:40When I was, as I was saying last week, I was at this event that she was also at,
11:44and at the end of it I tried to ask her about gender and she just wasn't shocked about it at
11:50all. She just turned around and walked off. So she doesn't want to talk too much about it,
11:56I don't think, because of the toxic debate that's come by. The toxic debate is probably,
12:04it's got to that stage because of the arguments on both sides, I think. But a lot of people will
12:10bring it all down back to Nicola Sturgeon because she was the First Minister when that debate
12:15happened at first. So it's a debate that's going to go on for a very, very long time,
12:18particularly because right now we're waiting on a UK Supreme Court verdict on the definition of
12:23women. We're also waiting on the outcome of this Employment Tribunal with NHS Fife that we've been
12:28following the past few weeks. So it's going to continue on. There's not really going to be a
12:33sort of a proper answer as to what should be done in this situation here. But for a lot of people,
12:38yeah, that will be what they remember Nicola Sturgeon for.
12:41And Alex, Rachel touched on this, but Nicola Sturgeon will be remembered by many in Scotland,
12:46because of her leadership during the Covid pandemic. Her remarkable communication skills
12:51were on full display during those regular televised press briefings that I still sometimes
12:56have horrible flashbacks to. And she almost semi-deliberately set up this contrast to Boris
13:03Johnson, or certainly the contrast to Boris Johnson was clear. I think few other politicians
13:07would have been able to connect with the public in the same way during such a difficult time.
13:13That said, the outcomes in Scotland and England were ultimately very similar,
13:17and we then had a later row because Nicola Sturgeon, it turned out, had deleted her Covid
13:22WhatsApps. What do you make of Nicola Sturgeon's legacy? How do you think she'll be remembered?
13:28Well, I think the fawning at the literary events is actually kind of perfect, as is the mention of
13:35Boris Johnson. I think she is a bit of a celebrity. I think she's more of a celebrity now than a
13:40politician, obviously because she's going. And I think much like Boris Johnson, she will be
13:45remembered as one of the greatest political campaigners, but actually not someone very good
13:49in government. Even if we look at polling now, it's tremendous to have won so many elections.
13:56That is not something to be sniffed at. She was an electoral tour de force. But if we look at
14:00actual delivery, and I think it was really telling that when she announced she was standing down as
14:03First Minister, S&P tributes struggled to kind of point to what she'd actually achieved. I mean,
14:09the fundamental goal of the S&P is to achieve independence. And you can say, well,
14:13it's a rigged game, and the UK government's not going to allow it. But if that's your main
14:17objective, she failed on that. She said that the attainment gap was her other main thing to be
14:22delivering in government. And she failed on that. So and I think it's really interesting. I mean,
14:26I wrote about this a couple of weeks ago for the Weekend Edition. And the polling shows that while
14:31people still had a semi positive approval rating of her, of her time in government, they didn't feel
14:36like they were better off because of Nicola Sturgeon in government. So I think there's a huge
14:40disconnect between the way that she is perceived as both a person and actually the way that people
14:46feel like their lives have been impacted by her. They think, well, you know, I remember campaigning
14:50and campaigning. I remember going during the Holyrood campaign and people going, oh, I'm going
14:53to do this because of Nicola. I'm going to, I'm going to vote for them because of Nicola. The same
14:58like Boris Johnson, the same I'll be doing this because of Boris, this first name terms,
15:02she cut through in a way that so many politicians can't begin to dream of. Something we're especially
15:07aware of this week with a poll that showed people were shown a photograph of Rupert Lowe,
15:12the reform MP who's about to, he's lost the whip and is soon to be kicked out perhaps.
15:16And people didn't recognise him. You know, you can't buy that sort of recognition. But
15:22what does it actually mean? What does it mean in terms of her political legacy? I just,
15:25I don't think it's particularly strong. And I would say the same, actually, for the perception
15:31of her in Westminster. MPs were routed and that in part came to gender ID. And I, I think that
15:38self ID and her attempts to improve the lives of trans people are one of the issues that
15:43she maybe will be looked at and gone, oh, maybe she was right in a few years. I think that she
15:47was trying to bring Scotland in line with many countries in Europe and the Americas.
15:51But even in that mission, she failed. It did not happen. It was blocked by the courts. And
15:56there's a gap again between her rhetoric and what she was actually able to deliver. Her legacy is
16:01someone who overpromised London delivered and that's a failure as a politician.
16:05Well, Rachel, I know you've you've given the signal that you you have to you have to head
16:09off for this event with Kenny Badenoch. So we'll let you go. Thank you very much for joining the
16:13podcast today. Yes, I'm not sure what's going to happen at this this meeting with Kenny Badenoch
16:18in Glasgow. I'm sure people look on the Scotsman's website. We can read all about it in a wee minute
16:22or two. I'll see you all later. Thank you. Alex, I mean, we we have to mention,
16:28obviously, the ongoing police investigations, the SNP's funding and finances, which is kind of hung
16:33like a dark cloud over the party for the last couple of years. Former SNP chief executive Peter
16:38Murrell, who Nicola Sturgeon announced she was divorcing in January, was charged with embezzlement
16:44in relation to this last year. I think senior figures in the SNP still shudder at the memory
16:49of that blue evidence tent erected outside the couple's home in April 2023 as a police probe
16:55exploded into the headlines. But we probably shouldn't discuss it too much, actually, because
17:00it's obviously a kind of ongoing thing. But as you mentioned there, with your kind of talk of Nicola
17:05Sturgeon, the celebrity, you know, it remains the case that Nicola Sturgeon is just a box office
17:09figure. You know, quite simply, there's no bigger name in Scottish politics. Even hostile newspapers
17:15kind of hang on her every word. I think only Alex Salmond could really rival her for that. I mean,
17:20I was quite struck yesterday that on Wednesday, after the news broke that she was standing down
17:26next year, she put it on her Instagram page. Journalists, you know, rushed to a spot outside
17:31Dynamic Earth in Edinburgh, which is kind of favoured by broadcasters because there's a good
17:36view of the Scottish Parliament in the background, to interview her, to hear what she had to say.
17:41You know, it's a real kind of, all the newspapers that were in the kind of press lobby and
17:46all the broadcasters were going over. It's just like, it's a kind of reaction that I don't think
17:51many other politicians have, or many other politicians can hope to have. Do you think
17:56her absence will be felt by the SNP and by the wider world of Scottish politics,
18:01for good and ill, in a way, because she's such a major figure?
18:06Absolutely. I think the SNP will miss her tremendous communication skills. They will
18:10miss that those who like her really, really like her. But I don't think, and not to go back to the
18:15data again, but I did spend a lot of time looking at it. She's just not popular in Scotland anymore.
18:20And while we can't talk, I think her overall approval ratings for politicians in Scotland,
18:25she was just above George Galloway on the latest YouGov aggravators, which is not a great place to
18:30be in. And we obviously can't get into the details about Operation Bridesmaid, we don't know what's
18:34going to be happening there. But what we can say is that having that hanging over her, and then if
18:41she were to say to stay on, be in Holyrood again, we don't know what's going to happen. That would
18:46be a problem. We don't know what's going to happen there. But she would keep getting asked about it.
18:49It would continue to be something that would be in the public's minds and in the party's minds,
18:54and perhaps something for opposition parties. So I think she didn't really have an option to stay.
18:59I don't think that she is necessarily this tremendous asset electorally for the SNP anymore.
19:05And I think because of it, she was probably deprived of doing perhaps a Theresa May who
19:11maybe wasn't the best communicator and had fallings out with her own party, but stayed on
19:16and I think maybe had created her own fresh legacy by kind of leading the charge on child slavery,
19:22to the point that other MPs from other parties and people who maybe never never liked Theresa May,
19:27and indeed charities would reference her and go, that is an example of a principled politician
19:32using their platform and going beyond just being a prime minister or a leader who then leaves and
19:38goes on book tours. I think that she's probably been deprived of that choice because of the
19:42police investigation. Yeah, I don't think she would have had any appetite to do that. I mean,
19:48she's been an MSP since 1999. It'll be almost three decades by the Holyrood election next year.
19:54And I think she, having been on the frontline politics for so long, you know, as a minister,
19:58then as first minister, and just with all that's happened in the kind of intervening time,
20:03I don't think she would have had any appetite to be a kind of backbencher, a backbench MSP.
20:08But this other stuff also plays into that very much as well. But moving on, because we've got
20:15to talk about something else as well, because we're kind of running out of time. Sir Keir
20:20Starmer, potentially facing a bit of a battle as his government prepares to announce expected
20:24cuts to the benefits system in the spring statement later on this month. Alex, I mean,
20:30where are we expecting these cuts to fall and what kind of impact might it have?
20:36Well, if I tell you what the vague plans are that we know that we haven't had them in full detail,
20:42I think if I said this to you, what was going to be happening in 2010, you'd be going,
20:45of course it is, it's George Osborne politics, this is Cameronite austerity,
20:49they are looking at cutting welfare, they are looking at going after benefits
20:53and getting more people into work who they feel could, but choose not to. It is a language around
21:01lots of jobs that disabled people could be doing, and that therefore, they need to find a way to
21:05get them into work and remove them from benefits, or drop them down from a higher tier of benefits.
21:10I think the benefits bill is forecast to go up by billions by 2030. So that's their concern.
21:17The problem is, as charities say, and as many of their own MPs say, it's finding fiscal headroom
21:23by going after the poorest. I think one charity said actually, of those who would have their
21:28benefits stripped away, only 3% actually would be able to go into work. So there is real concern
21:33among Labour MPs about this, and Downing Street are alert to that. This week they have had
21:39meetings and MPs have been going in and out constantly as Downing Street tries to make the
21:43case and say, look, this is why we're doing it. It's complicated and it's very, very controversial.
21:50On one hand you have a small handful of MPs, I think 36 of them signed a letter supporting the
21:55reforms, calling them highly progressive. That was signed by five Scottish Labour MPs. At the same
22:01time you have Brian Leishman, who has never been shy of criticising his own government, saying
22:07that actually, going ahead with these plans, many people will die and it's not what he got into
22:12politics to do. So the party finds itself in a real bind where they could see anything from 30
22:19people rebelling to perhaps 80. Long-term fans of the podcast will know we've talked about Scottish
22:26Labour being broadly pretty committed to the Prime Minister, pretty supportive regardless.
22:32Even on things like winter fuel or two-sharp benefit cap, while there may have been concerns
22:37privately, they backed the Prime Minister and they wouldn't even say things off the record.
22:41They understood or they believed that tough decisions had to be made. That is not necessarily
22:45the case here. MPs are beginning to loosen their lips a little bit. They are beginning to
22:52murmur their unhappiness and go off script. And if the plans go ahead as they are currently
22:58envisaged, I think you're going to see, if not a big rebellion from Scottish Labour,
23:02I think you're going to see a lot of MPs think, you know what, I do not need to associate myself
23:07with this. I'm going to vote for it. But I've done my bit there and I'm now ready to speak
23:12out about the government and push it to a direction that I think it should be going in.
23:16So do you think almost like even if even if they back this particular move, it would open up,
23:22you know, it's kind of, it's destroyed goodwill in a way, that it would open up the potential for
23:25them to rebel over other things in the future? Yeah, absolutely. I think for these first,
23:31this first period of Starmer's premiership, MPs have had to go back to constituents and say,
23:36two child benefit cap, winter fuel, farmers, you know, and apologise to pensioners and say,
23:43but actually, it's all part of a grander plan. We're making these savings 22.5 billion black hole.
23:48But that doesn't really, doesn't really work. You can say that you're making tough decisions,
23:53but you're still doing things that negatively impact people. And I think many Labour MPs think
23:58they've kind of they've done it, they have apologised and justified enough. And there's
24:03only so many more cuts they're willing to do. I mean, the problem is, the only real solution
24:10to raise revenue is to increase tax. And the Labour Party seems to think that's politically
24:16impossible. This week, I spoke to several who maybe would support tax rises, but feel like
24:21keeping the national insurance cuts announced by the Conservatives has kind of massively hindered
24:26them. They tried to offset that by business relief and going after farmers. But again,
24:31that's just irritated another smaller community. And while farmers are just one community going
24:37after those who are the most vulnerable, the workers, and I think it's worth remembering that
24:42a lot of people on universal credit, a lot of people on benefits are also in work, going after
24:47them. MPs kind of feel that's incompatible with Labour values. It's not going after farmers who
24:52are asset rich, and then having a debate over whether, you know, having a million pounds of
24:57assets, can you still be poor? It's, these are the poorest, we've cut foreign aid, that's going to
25:02kill people internationally. We've done it as a defence and we had to, to these people who are on
25:08benefits and desperately need it. We cannot keep supporting them, we've got to find ways for them to
25:12work. It is the language of austerity. And I think many MPs feel that and we're going to hear that a
25:19lot more in the weeks and months ahead.
25:21Well, it will be fascinating to watch that unfold. But that's all we've got time for in this week's podcast.
25:28Please tune in again next week. And in the meantime, stay tuned to the Scotsman's website for all the latest news,
25:34comment, analysis and video. Thank you very much for listening.
25:42The steamy politics podcast from the Scotsman.