In the first television interview ahead of the publication of her memoir this week, former First Minister of Scotland, Nicola Sturgeon, has spoken exclusively to ITV News about the row over transgender prisoner, Isla Bryson, and her anger at Alex Salmond’s refusal to fully engage over the Referendum White Paper.
Nicola Sturgeon: The Interview sees ITV News at Ten presenter, Julie Etchingham, question the former SNP leader on the political and personal revelations in her book, ‘Frankly’. The interview will be shown tonight (Monday August 11) at 7pm on ITV.
During the wide-ranging interview Sturgeon talks about: the shame she felt at the police raid of her home; her own ‘horrific’ arrest; regrets at how she handled the gender reform bill in Scotland, her forthright views about Nigel Farage and Alex Salmond, as well as her sexuality and devastating miscarriage.
On transgender rapist Isla Bryson, Sturgeon was asked by Etchingham why she became unstuck over questions about the rapist’s gender: “Isla Bryson identified as a woman. I think what I would say now is anybody who commits the most heinous male crime against women probably forfeits the right to be the gender of their choice.” She added: “That probably was not the best phrase to use…”
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Asked why she doesn’t simply say Isla Bryson is a biological male: “They are a biological male but that’s about whether…. it gets back into the self ID thing. I should have been much more straightforward, I wasn’t, but that’s because of the debate. We’d lost all sense of rationality in this debate. I’m partly responsible for that.”
On the 2014 Referendum White Paper, Sturgeon said: “I remember an evening which I just suddenly had this overwhelming sense of impossibility. I can’t get this to the point it needs to be at. It’s so unwieldy. It’s so difficult. And I just remember having what I can only describe as a panic attack. I was sobbing on the floor of my office at home and just my heart was racing.”
The former First Minister was scathing about her former boss Alex Salmond’s part in the process: “He really didn’t engage in the work of the drafting or the compilation of the White Paper at all. He was the leader, he was the First Minister, and he hadn’t read it,” she said. “He hadn’t read it. He’d maybe read bits. I don’t even know if he’d read bits of it. I knew I was going to have to sit him down and say, ‘Look, you’re going to have to read this, and you’re going to have to tell me now if there are bits you want to change, because it has to be signed off.
“He told me he was going on a trade mission to China. I don’t think I’d ever felt as much cold fury at him as I did in that moment. It just seemed to me like an abdication of responsibility.”
Away from the tough political questions, Etchingham asked Sturgeon about getting a tattoo: “Midlife crisis alert,” the former FM laughed. “What it is, is known really only to me, but I’ll give you a kind of sense of it. It’s kind of an infinity symbol with an arrow, and I came up with the design myself.
“In summary, what it signifies to me is strength, resilience and continuing to move forward, even when it feels impossible. And it might not be my last one now that I’ve got the taste for it.”
Nicola Sturgeon: The Interview will broadcast on Monday August 11th at 7pm on ITV1, ITVX & STV.
An extended version of the interview will be available on ITVX in the following days
‘Frankly’ by Nicola Sturgeon, published by Pan Macmillan, is available from August 14.
Image and clip courtesy ITV News
