Since its publication and considerable media attention, Nicola Sturgeon’s book has been subjected to much criticism. Some on the pro-independence don’t like her hatchet job on the late Alex Salmond, apparently a former mentor of hers.
Others question the sincerity of her remarks about gender reform, which she forced to the top of the agenda only to now admit it should have been paused.
But I’d like to offer a defence of ‘Frankly’.
It is the perfect tribute to the SNP’s time in government.
The book dwells on independence and the nationalists’ insatiable desire to break up the world’s most successful social and economic union.
And it obsesses about petty party political in-fighting and internal score-settling.What the Scottish Government has managed to do in almost 20 years of SNP power, the former First Minister achieves in 480 pages.
It is the perfect mirror image of an administration which has focused on all the trivial things while swiping to the side anything of importance to the people of Scotland.It’s no surprise an author would want to prioritise only the best bits in a work like this.
But all the same, it will be galling for the people of Glasgow to see the absence of the topic of drug deaths, an issue which hits this city harder than anywhere else in the country, if not the developed world, and which Ms Sturgeon repeatedly failed to get a grip on.
There was no talk of the NHS, which has lurched from crisis to crisis under nationalist stewardship.
Nor was there focus on the very subject Ms Sturgeon wanted to be judged upon – education and closing the attainment gap.
With standards in schools plummeting and violence against teachers and pupils running out of control, it’s no shock she didn’t want to waste pages on that area.
In fact, the SNP has failed on almost every devolved issue, and none of those were given much attention in the bookFrom failing ferries and gaping potholes to creaking infrastructure and dismal GDP figures, none of it is important according to ‘Frankly’.
And though Ms Sturgeon might be on the verge of a political departure, her spirit lives on.
Last week SNP MSP Kevin Stewart saw fit to lodge a motion calling for Scotland to stop its MSPs swearing an allegiance to the King.
Backed by a number of SNP and Green colleagues, and remarkably even one Labour MSP, his motion said Scotland should aspire to be just like the country of Grenada by ditching its links to the Monarchy.
With everything going on, quite how any politician could deem this worthy of attention is astonishing.
But this is the culture Nicola Sturgeon created within the SNP government.
Virtue-signalling above delivery, fashion above substance, complete nonsense above the things that matter most to the people of Glasgow and Scotland.
And when the ex-First Minister does step up in future to offer thoughts or advice on a range of policy or political matters at home and abroad, let us remember her record in government.
And let us remember how unimportant all of that was as she sat down to pen the story of her political life.
