From Holyrood to Younger Hall: Sturgeon Brings Frankly to St Andrews

Nicola Sturgeon’s book launch was less a literary gathering than a reminder of her enduring command of an audience.

The former First Minister — and the first woman to lead both Scotland and the Scottish National Party — has returned to public life two years after resigning from office with the release of her memoir, Frankly. Sturgeon has faced a mixed reception during her UK tour: hailed by some for its candour, dismissed by others as a carefully curated account. On stage, however, she reminded her audience why she remains one of the most formidable political orators of her generation, with her sharp, confident, and often witty delivery. Yet the evening also laid bare the contradictions that have long defined her career: a blend of vulnerability and steel, coupled with a relentless care over how much of herself she chooses to reveal.

Sturgeon spoke openly of her struggle to write the memoir. “Some days I hated the process,” she admitted. “I can’t do this,” she remembered saying to herself. Political memoirs, she said, are too often “dense, dry, and boring” and she was determined instead to be “open, candid, and raw”. Her hope for the book, she added, was modest but telling: “If people say it is well written, that will make me happiest.” The remark sounded almost self-effacing, but for a politician known for meticulous message control, her insistence that “everything in this book, for better or worse, was written intentionally” felt like a pointed reminder that she is still curating her own story.

The author spoke with humour about her uneasy relationship with the press. She humorously recalled the Daily Mail tabloid’s description of her as “the most dangerous woman in Britain.” Her response: “That was the nicest thing the Daily Mail ever said about me.” If the label stung, she did not let on. Instead, she insisted she does not regret the path she took in life.

On stage, Sturgeon described herself as “a shy, introverted person”, someone who has always wrestled with “a conflict between the private and public self”. To survive, she said, she became a “public introvert”, capable of slipping into “performance mode”. Even her imposter syndrome, she suggested, became an advantage: “It’s a superpower … it makes you work harder.” These confessions rang genuine, though critics might argue they reflect a tendency to reframe weakness as strength, an instinct that helped her survive in power but occasionally hindered accountability.

The strongest passages of the evening were focused on gender in politics. “Women are much more scrutinised for what they wear,” she said, recalling how clothes became a “suit or armour”. Women in political careers, she argued, are “expected to mother your colleagues in a way men aren’t”, and their performance is judged by “very gendered” standards. It was a striking intervention, though one tempered by the memory that Sturgeon was not always so outspoken on feminist questions while commanding the machinery of government.

Sturgeon’s tenure was marked by a significant controversy over the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, which sought to simplify legal gender changes, especially for transgender people. The issue divided public opinion and split her party, with critics citing women’s safety concerns and high-profile cases like Isla Bryson. Sturgeon defended the reforms, stressing she would “never be forced to choose between supporting women’s rights and trans rights”, while warning that the debate had been “weaponised and hijacked”, putting trans people at risk; her remarks were met with a loud round of applause from the audience.

Her memoir devotes a difficult chapter to the late Alex Salmond, her former mentor turned nemesis — a section she admitted she nearly left out. In 2018, Salmond was accused of multiple sexual assault offences during his time as First Minister, charges he was acquitted of in 2020 after a high-profile trial. Though legally cleared, the scandal destroyed his reputation, fractured the SNP, and poisoned his relationship with Sturgeon, who faced accusations by his allies that she orchestrated conspiracies against him. “I decided to keep that chapter about him in”, she explained, “as until he died, he was still claiming I was plotting conspiracies”. It was a rare moment of rawness — grief entwined with anger, loyalty complicated by betrayal. 

“Together we were stronger … he was a hugely important and influential figure. He helped push me beyond what I thought was possible, and he encouraged me to believe in myself.”Still, she confessed: “I thought I had done my grieving for Alex … I sometimes still have dreams about him.” The audience fell quiet with the poignant reminder of wounds that have never fully healed.

Elsewhere, the tone was lighter. She fondly recalled being “more nervous for [her] private audiences with the late Queen than for her own weekly First Minister’s Questions”, with the monarch “loving the gossip behind the scenes”. President Trump, she said, was “entirely bizarre” and her first phone call with him during his first term “felt like a bad acid dream”. Of Boris Johnson, she was scathing: “He is fundamentally an unserious person, always looking for material for a gag — he should never have been 100 miles close to 10 Downing Street.” Liz Truss fared no better: “I get the feeling we wouldn’t have hit it off.”

The pandemic loomed heavily over her reflections both in her book and on stage. “I got lots of things right and lots of things wrong,” she conceded, before adding: “I took decisions in good faith.” It was a formulation typical of Sturgeon — acknowledgement without full reckoning. More warmly, she credited comedian Janey Godley with easing the nation’s fear through her parodies of Sturgeon’s daily briefings during Covid-19: “Janey made us laugh at a vital time … Janey Godley helped save lives.”

Her personal troubles were harder to joke about. She described the police raid on her home and subsequent arrest in June 2023 as devastating. “It didn’t feel like home, and since then it really never has,” she said. And yet, she insisted, “Through inner strength and resilience I found a way of keeping going … bizarrely getting stronger.” On stage, she declared, she is “stronger and happier” than she “ever used to be”. Admirers will hear resilience; sceptics might detect a carefully crafted redemption arc.

Stepping away from political office, she said, had been an unexpectedly jarring experience. “Learning to become an adult again,” was how she described it, a big transition after decades in the public eye. With a smile, she added: “I’m now determined to live a delayed adolescence.”

Her attacks on contemporary politics were blistering. Nigel Farage and President Trump were branded “charlatans”, part of “a massive wealth gap … an exploitative wealth minority.” Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, she argued, was “trying to outdo Farage, not stand up to him”. She called instead for “the backbone to stand up to the populist right”, warning, “These people are selling snake oil.” It was a reminder of her sharpest strength — the ability to puncture opponents with a well-aimed phrase — but also of her limitations, as her own tenure often raised more questions about delivery than rhetoric.

Accusations of political misjudgement hung in the background of the evening, though Sturgeon brushed them aside. When asked about the future of the Scottish independence movement, she was fervent: “I’ll be campaigning for independence until we get it.” Her rhetoric shifted quickly from the personal to the aspirational. “To build a better, fairer, and more just Scotland”, she said, “it is going to come to fruition much quicker than we think”.

Yet, she admitted, the process remains fraught. “The hard bit is getting the referendum process,” she acknowledged, before adding with characteristic certainty: “Winning will not be easy, but it is inevitable.” For her, independence is more than a constitutional question; it is a moral one. “Scotland can become a beacon of justice,” she argued. What is required, she told the crowd, is to “build that support and clamour for independence” and to “make independence relevant to the world we live in.”

As the event in Younger Hall drew to a close and applause rippled through the audience, one thought lingered. Perhaps above all, it is Sturgeon’s oratory that has best defined her career, the precision of her language and her ability to command a room. Yet the evening was also a reminder of the limits of that gift: persuasive and powerful, but not always willing — or able — to confront the hardest questions.

Images by Maria Ebrahim