Nicola Sturgeon's legacy as Scotland's former first minister is poisonous

Nicola Sturgeon is viewed as a political hero on the left

If you take away her actual record in office, then that makes sense and helps.

Is a book by Nicola Sturgeon available?

Yes. Unfortunately, there aren't many revelations in Nicola Sturgeon's memoir, especially considering that the publishers reportedly paid out a £300,000 advance for the book Frankly. The former first minister of Scotland is a divisive figure, so whether you find her remarks exciting or ridiculous will depend on your ideology and personal preferences. Opponents denounce her as conceited, patronizing, and unforgiving of anyone whose opinions she disagrees with, while supporters praise her as direct and honest. For instance, former SNP MP Joanna Cherry, a lawyer who vehemently opposed Sturgeon's gender reforms, is ruthless in exposing her former leader's shortcomings in domestic policy, such as poverty, health, education, and transportation, as well as, of course, the failure to achieve independence. Cherry claims in the Scottish Daily Mail that "she repeatedly promised a second referendum that she knew she could not deliver, issuing a never-ending list of dates and targets which she missed." She led her soldiers up and down the slope until a large number of them repulsed and left.

Is it reasonable?

To a certain extent. As the leader of the SNP, Sturgeon won eight consecutive elections before watching her party collapse in 2024, losing all but nine of its Westminster seats. Sturgeons would undoubtedly be envied by 99 percent of politicians if all political careers ended in failure. In her more than eight years as first minister, from November 2014 to March 2023, she led the SNP to unprecedented electoral success. The party won 56 of the 59 seats and 50% of the Scottish vote in the UK general election in May 2015, a 30 percentage point increase in its vote share. Sturgeon never put the SNP in danger of losing power at Holyrood, and even now, following Labour's victory in the UK election in 2024, the SNP leads opinion polls for the 2026 election. Support for independence remained stable at 4550 percent, briefly rising to 53 percent in 2020, and party membership soared under Sturgeon, solidifying the SNP's position as Scotland's dominant party of government. That is a significant accomplishment that has never been done by another leader.

In office, what did Nicola Sturgeon accomplish?

Even though GDP grew broadly in line with the rest of the UK, the SNP government under Sturgeon shifted to the left by using newly devolved powers to make social security more generous and income tax more progressive (and higher than in England). However, Alex Massie of The Times claims that "outcomes are not 25 percent better" despite Scotland's ballooning debt and spending on public services like health and education being about 25% higher per capita than in England. They can occasionally be noticeably worse. The number of drug-related deaths in Scotland is higher than in any other country in Europe, and although the causes are multifaceted, the problem's scope doubled during Sturgeon's tenure. The most recent public finance statistics, according to Lucy Dunn of The Spectator, "paint a pretty bleak picture." A black hole in Scotland's public finances, totaling 26.5 billion, represents 11.7 percent of GDP. If North Sea oil revenues are taken out of the equation, the gap grows to over 30 billion.

How about the classroom?

It's a comparable tale. Not long after taking office as first minister, Sturgeon pledged to "close the attainment gap completely" between children from wealthy and impoverished families and requested that this metric be used to evaluate him. However, ten years later, that disparity has grown and continues to do so annually, with Scotland falling far behind England and other similar countries on important indicators. The Guardian's Libby Brooks claims that even Sturgeon's supporters have struggled with "the space between rhetoric and reality in the SNP government." Among her greatest accomplishments, according to Sturgeon, are the implementation of the Scottish child payment, the growth of free childcare, and assistance for children in foster care. However, there is a notable implementation gap in practice; extended childcare ended up being a postcode lottery, with additional hours provided at times that are inconvenient for workers. However, Massie claims that "good intentions are expected to substitute for good outcomes" because of modern politics. In that way, Sturgeon exemplified a specific kind of political achievement. Additionally, nobody ever lost money on wagers against the Scottish left's ability to pretend to be morally upright. Sturgeon is and has always been an expert in this field.

But what about COVID?

Some people believe that the pandemic was Sturgeon's best moment. However, in actuality, Sturgeon's policies were primarily different from England's in terms of timing and tone. In general, Scotland's record on fatalities and economic losses is comparable to or worse than that of many of its European counterparts. When it was discovered that numerous important WhatsApp messages had been erased, the public investigation into the pandemic damaged her reputation. Even prior to 2020, the Scottish health system was experiencing significant strain, which Sturgeon attributes to the pandemic. Compared to England and other European peers, Scotland has a lower and declining life expectancy and more drug-related deaths under the SNP, which has been in power since 2007.

As a legacy, not so much?

Iain Macwhirter of The Spectator claims that the SNP has already retracted a large portion of her policy legacy. The absurdity of gender has been dropped.

The Sturgeons' alliance with the Greens is no longer in place. Additionally, she set aggressive emissions reduction targets, which the Scottish government has abandoned. She had intended to replace one million gas boilers by 2030, but only this week did so. The SNP must first acknowledge that Sturgeon's "policies, especially on gender and the environment, led to a breach with many mainstream Scottish voters" if it hopes to achieve its goal of independence. Yes, 46% of voters continue to support independence. However, there is still no chance that it will ever come to pass.