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Nicola Sturgeon on challenges facing the SNP

Nicola Sturgeon on challenges facing the SNP

British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan was once asked what was the most difficult thing about his job. “Events, dear boy, events,” was his now famous reply.

And after a month that has seen newspapers filled with questions about the integrity of an MP who is no longer even one of hers, Nicola Sturgeon could be justified in paraphrasing Macmillan’s words with those of our current PM, David Cameron, “shit happens”.

Michelle Thomson, independent MP for Edinburgh West, and until two weeks ago on the SNP’s front bench at Westminster, won’t be in Aberdeen for the annual conference, having been suspended from the party following allegations about property deals involving her company, which are now the subject of a police investigation. But she will cast a long shadow.

Thomson would have been playing a key role in Aberdeen. As the party’s Business, Innovation and Skills spokesperson in the House of Commons, she was scheduled to host a plethora of fringe events exploring the SNP’s economic direction and hobnobbing with influential business types.

And while rewriting fringe listings is likely to have been a much easier process than rewriting this particular episode in SNP history will prove to be, Sturgeon would, presumably, rather be discussing policy in the run-up to party conference than having to bat questions about what she knew and when about Thomson’s business practices.

Thomson continues to deny any legal wrongdoing, but the affair has already led to her solicitor being struck off, the UK’s Serious and Organised Crime Agency – now the National Crime Agency – being alerted, a police investigation being sparked and the Lord Advocate being called to answer questions in the Scottish Parliament about the Crown’s involvement in the case.

And regardless of whether Thomson is or is not ultimately found guilty of any illegality, the media coverage of her complex business practices which involved, among other things, back-to-back property transactions and insensitive boasts about profiting from others’ misfortune during a recession, have held a mirror to the SNP’s claims of being a party of social justice.

As the Lord Advocate indicated to MSPs, the episode still has a long way to run but it has already crystallized opinion and in the febrile world of Twitterland, has further exposed cultish support from a vocal band of SNP advocates who seem blinkered to the very idea of any wrongdoing - whether criminal or moral - from one of their own.

They have described the mainstream media’s coverage of the affair as a witchhunt and the SNP’s MP for Perth and North Perthshire, Pete Wishart, has claimed it has verged on misogyny.

Coming on top of claims of cronyism following the Scottish Government’s award of £150,000 to the company behind T in the Park, for whom a former SNP government special adviser was working, and continued finger-pointing from the opposition parties about the SNP’s record on health, education and justice, you would be justified in thinking that some of the shine has come off what has been an extraordinary year for the SNP.

In the 12 months since losing the referendum, the SNP’s membership has quadrupled, Nicola Sturgeon has taken over as leader, the party has won all but three of the 59 Scottish seats at Westminster in the general election and after eight years in government, they are showing upwards of 50 per cent of support in the polls for next year’s Scottish Parliament elections.

But it’s just ten weeks since my last interview with the First Minister who was, at that time, clearly jubilant following the UK general election. She had become subject to global media attention during that election and has since featured in Vogue, Elle and been interviewed by Tony Blair’s former spin doctor, Alastair Campbell, for GQ magazine. He later tweeted that Sturgeon “gives straight answers to straight questions” and suggested the contenders for the Labour leadership at that time could learn a lesson.

Ten weeks on, much has changed and the chill in the room is clearly less to do with the onset of autumn and more to do with current events. There is a defensiveness that I never normally detect from Sturgeon, although understandable in the circumstances.

That morning, Ruth Davidson, the Scottish Conservative leader, had told her party conference in Manchester that the SNP is failing in many areas under its control. And the media is still firmly focused on both the T in the Park allegations and the investigations surrounding Michelle Thomson’s property dealings. So has the shine come off?

“No, I don’t think it has,” she says rather wearily, demonstrating a steely look that I’ve not witnessed for some time. “Look, the verdict that matters to me, in fact the only verdict that matters in politics, is the verdict of the people, so Ruth Davidson and Kezia Dugdale can say what they like about the SNP, and I will say what I say about them, but it is what the people think that matters and last Thursday, there were seven local by-elections in many different parts of Scotland and the SNP won six of them, and overwhelmingly so.

My focus is on making sure that we continue to deliver so that the people of Scotland continue to put their trust in us, and all of the evidence suggests that the SNP is still the political choice of many people across Scotland.”

I remind Sturgeon that in the run-up to the Westminster election she said, “democratic politics has never been more alive and the expectations people have of their politicians and parliament have never been higher”. Given the current issues, does she think she and her party are meeting those expectations?

“We continue to strive to meet them,” she says. “Politicians are not perfect and I have never said they are. Politicians, in a whole variety of ways and in a whole variety of issues, will make mistakes and get things wrong, but it is the standards you set yourself and it’s what you do day-to-day to live up to those that people judge you on.

“As a politician, I will live and die by the judgement of the Scottish people and that’s what matters to me. The verdict of the Scottish people, and we will have an election in May, seems to say that they like what the SNP is doing in government, they like the way the SNP stands up for Scotland at Westminster and they like the SNP approach to politics.

It doesn’t mean they agree with us on everything or that we are infallible, but they’ll make their judgements based on the people they feel most comfortable with representing them.”

There are some, of course, who feel that that electoral loyalty may have been misled by the SNP. The glowing endorsements for the now suspended Michelle Thomson gave the impression that Sturgeon and most of her frontbench team knew much more about Thomson’s business capabilities than it appears they did.

Alex Neil, Cabinet Secretary for Social Justice, for instance, said of Thomson during the election campaign, that she had “an excellent grasp of the economic picture, but also demonstrated a commitment to how business can be used to support social justice.”

Angela Constance, Cabinet Secretary for Education and Lifelong Learning, said: “Michelle is known for her grasp of finance, business and the economy.” And Sturgeon herself said: “Michelle knows what she is doing, knows her area and knows about fairness, equality and prosperity. I say, bring it on, Michelle.” Surely those words can now only prove embarrassing?

“Look, I don’t want any of my MPs, MSPs, MEPs, councillors or party members under investigation for anything, but when there is an investigation then I think I am right to say that that investigation should be allowed to proceed. I said at FMQs last week, and it may not be a fashionable thing to say, but even politicians are allowed the presumption of innocence.

Investigations will take their course and at the outcome of those investigations, what people will expect of me is that if there are reasons to take action then I will take that action, but what I am not going to do, and certainly not because an opposition politician wants to make political capital out of something, is prejudge the outcome of any investigation.”

But surely it is fairly obvious that the party’s vetting procedures can’t be as robust as they should be otherwise Sturgeon et al would have been ill-advised to praise Thomson for, among other things, her “commitment to how business can be used to support social justice.”

Sturgeon has already claimed she knew nothing of the details of the allegations surrounding Thomson’s business dealings until she read about them in a Sunday newspaper.

“We will keep our vetting procedures under review but, by definition, you can’t know things you don’t know. I don’t have all the information about all of the circumstances about all of the things that have been raised about Michelle Thomson and nor would I be expected to have.

There is a police investigation and whatever politicians might like, it is important that it is allowed to proceed and conclude and if there are things I need to address in a party sense, then I will do that.”

So is the party currently reviewing its vetting?

“We always keep these procedures under review and it goes back to the fact that the SNP remains a party with massive support and our party membership has more than quadrupled in the past year and we have many more people coming forward to stand as candidates. That is a fantastic thing so as a result of that growth, these are procedures we keep under review and always will.”

The SNP only changed its rules about new members being able to stand for election at the last party conference and I wonder if there was perhaps a clamour about getting some of the so-called stars of the Yes campaign on board, approved and put up for candidate selection with undue haste. Could this have meant too few questions were asked when even a cursory glance at Facebook or a Google check might have elicited some points for concern?

“Facebook, Google…Mandy, with the greatest respect, I don’t spend all my time on Facebook looking at people…You know, we can spend this whole interview talking about Michelle Thomson, but there is a police investigation and I am not going to get into any more of the substance around this because I don’t think it is right to pre-empt the investigation that is under way.

“You heard the Lord Advocate talking about the seriousness of a police investigation and I am not going to get into a discussion that is going to pre-empt that investigation. Once it is out of the way, and if there is action I need to take, I will take it and people can ask me what they like about it then.”

That’s all well and good, and I know when I am flogging a dead horse, but Sturgeon had offered a new politics – the Labour leadership candidates were even being asked what characteristic of hers they shared as a measure of their calibre – but on the face of it, the SNP seem to be just falling into the same trap as Labour of old, with allegations of cronyism, a sense of entitlement and of taking the electorate for granted. This is something she strongly refutes.

“Absolutely not. There is no evidence to back that up. There has been this one case, in terms of T in the Park, where some people think we did something that we shouldn’t have and we have put forward a very good reason for why we did it and in terms of the so-called cronyism, there was no involvement by the individual [former special adviser Jennifer Dempsie] in that decision.

“Look, Glasgow City Council, and I know this because it impacted on my constituency, gave DF concerts [the company behind T in the Park] £200,000 for concerts in Bellahouston Park. If it is so wrong to do that, then why hasn’t Labour been taken to task at Glasgow City Council?”

This is interesting. Scottish Labour has been rightly criticised over the last few years for its failure to recognise where it was going wrong politically. Central to that criticism has been Labour’s persistence in defining itself by the SNP.

This is the first time in recent years that I have heard Sturgeon defend the SNP’s actions by using Labour as the barometer of right or wrong, as in, if they did it, then why can’t we? That doesn’t sound very new politics to me. We move on.

Does she think the election of Jeremy Corbyn is a threat to the SNP? She starts to look more relaxed as we talk about a party other than hers.

“No. Jeremy Corbyn is not a threat to the SNP and I think that even more now than I did when he was first elected.

“You know me and you know there is not a complacent fibre in my being and if anything, I am ultra-sensitive to things that could be difficult or damaging to the SNP and so of course, I was interested to see how Jeremy Corbyn would play, but actually, taking away the fact that I am the leader of the SNP, as someone who cares about politics and the political discourse, I actually had high hopes for Jeremy Corbyn.

“I hoped that he might do across the UK what I think the SNP has contributed to in Scotland, which has changed the whole political dynamic, but I think in the weeks since he has been elected, all the early evidence is that Labour is changing him and not that he is changing the Labour Party.

“You now have a Jeremy Corbyn-led Labour Party that seems at pains to say it will vote for the Tory austerity charter, with a mess on Trident, where you have a leader who says he will never press the nuclear button – which I absolutely commend him for – but on the other hand, a party whose official policy is to spend £100 billion renewing Trident.

“Ultimately, what you have seen over the last few weeks is a party that is deeply and very bitterly divided and people don’t need a divided opposition to the Tories, they need a strong and united opposition to the Tories.

“Every leader makes compromises on a day-to-day basis, but you don’t compromise on your core principles and you don’t compromise on whether your party gets to vote on the renewal of nuclear weapons. That is not something you compromise on.

“I have no doubt that Jeremy Corbyn will vote against renewing Trident and I’ll be delighted to be on the same side of the argument as him, but that matters little if the bulk of his parliamentary party are on the other side and they vote for the renewal.

“This is a particularly important issue for the main opposition party because you can’t just hedge your bets on whether you are for or against nuclear weapons, it is a fundamental position.”

But doesn’t he offer that left-wing element that may tempt back some in Scotland who had become disillusioned with Labour and drifted to the SNP?

“No, I think there are so many flaws in that argument. Firstly, whether Labour are left or right or centre, none of that counts unless they are a credible, united opposition.

“You can hold all sorts of fantastic positions, but if you don’t have the proverbial snowball’s chance in getting elected to put those positions into practice, then it is not going to help many people.

“That is Labour’s fundamental problem and I don’t think, incidentally, that is about him being too left wing, it is about him leading a party that is deeply divided, that can’t agree on some of the basics about where they would want to take the country.

“That is the first flaw, and the second one is that yes, people in Scotland are of course interested in left and right politics, and I am very comfortable about where the SNP is at in terms of the centre left, social democratic ground of politics, but when people look at the SNP, they don’t just see us in terms of left and right, they know where we are in terms of the centre left, but there is something more than that, which is a party that is united and standing up for Scotland whether that is here in Scotland or in Westminster or in council chambers across the country.

“People see that determination to stand up for the Scottish national interest and that is why we are in the strong position we are in and while I never take that for granted, I don’t think Jeremy Corbyn’s election has made Labour any more of a threat to the SNP.

“What does Corbyn’s leadership mean for Kezia’s leadership of the Scottish Labour Party?

“Well, Scottish Labour is in an interesting dilemma because, notwithstanding all I have said about Jeremy Corbyn, he is someone that is attracting interest, so at a very time when Scottish Labour desperately needs to assert its autonomy and independence and desperately needs to be able to convince people that they have a leader that is capable of leading the party forward, at that same time, the great temptation is going to be to try and get some of Jeremy Corbyn’s stardust sprinkled over them, which undermines their case for autonomy. That dilemma is going to be really unhelpful for them.

“I think on some of the big issues, I look at Kezia and think she is in no man’s land and, forgive me if I get this wrong because I am losing track of her positions, she is against…no, she is for Trident…and as far as I’m aware, her deputy is against renewal of Trident…the leader of the party UK-wide is against renewal, but official party policy UK-wide is for renewal… and they may or may not debate it at their Scottish conference later this month. That’s an impossible position for any leader in Scotland.

“It strikes me there are two issues for Kezia. One is in her own control presumably, unless I am missing something about the Scottish Labour Party, and the other one is not, and I am talking specifically about Trident.

“Firstly, she needs to sort out the Scottish Labour Party position, and we’ll see if they do that at their conference or not, but even if the Scottish Labour Party comes out against renewal, what difference does that make if their representatives at Westminster, where this decision will be taken, are going to be voting for it and on that bit she has no direct control.

“It is a mess and signifies a deeper malaise about what actually Labour is for anymore. I don’t think anyone can answer that question right now.”

What about what Dugdale herself stands for, can Sturgeon answer that question?

“No, but I am going to give her the benefit of the doubt because she is a relatively new leader and I was once the relatively new deputy leader leading the SNP opposition at Holyrood, so I know you need time to establish yourself, but right now, I can’t answer the question of what Kezia Dugdale’s politics are.

“To be fair to her, she has got to have the time to see whether she can answer it but I think in answering it personally, she also has to be able to answer it for the party, and that would seem to me the big challenge she faces.

“Right now, Labour and the Tories attack me for everything. They are not too sure what they stand for, but they know they are against us so whether it is health, education, justice or the environment, their motto is ‘SNP bad’.

I am not immune to criticism and on the contrary, I’m anything but, but I do not set the priorities of my government based on what Labour and the Tories say about the SNP because if I did that, I would be setting different priorities every day because they say anything we do is wrong.

“I’ve got to decide for myself what really matters and that’s why education is being given such a central role, not because the opposition are having a go at us on it, but because I think it’s important and I think we have made big progress and [there is] much we should be proud of, but there is still a lot more to do.”

If the SNP does win the next election with a majority, as the polls are continuing to predict, Sturgeon’s party will have been in power for 14 years, during which time she has either led the party or been the deputy leader. What will her legacy be?

She groans. “Ah, Mandy, with the greatest respect, I haven’t even be First Minister for a year, so I am not going to talk about my political legacy and whatever the polls say, I don’t take this election for granted, partly because you shouldn’t take any election for granted, but in a PR system, winning a majority is an incredibly difficult thing to do.

“There will be no complacency, no taking it for granted. I hope we can win, I intend to win and I will be aiming to win a majority.

“It’s too early for me to talk about legacy, but I have very clearly said that education and closing the attainment gap is a personal as well as a government priority for me and what I have said openly, which some people think is a daft thing to do, is ‘judge me on that’.

“You can’t judge me on that now because these things take time, but over my period of tenure as First Minister, however long that will be, I want to be judged on that and I am prepared to be judged on that.

“This party conference will be about putting the SNP on an election footing and it will be celebrating our achievements in government, but it will be setting out where I think we need to go next in terms of the priorities for the country and, a bit like my Programme for Government did, it will be looking at the long-term challenges that Scotland faces.

“Of course, we have to put a manifesto forward for the next five years, but if we win in May, we will lead the country into the next decade, so it will be very much a long-term perspective, whether on health or education, about what we need to do to equip the country for the future.”

And what of her future? Given David Cameron has already said he will not stay on as leader for a third term, when does she intend to stand down?

“There’s not much David Cameron does that I wish to emulate,” she laughs. “I think that should be another one.

“Look, I have been First Minister for less than a year, and I am about to face an election which for the first time I will look the Scottish people in the eye and say, ‘vote for me as First Minister’.

“I think it would be rather strange if I was already deciding when I would stand down, but let’s put it this way, if I win the next election, and I take nothing for granted, then it will be my plan to also fight the election after that as leader as well, all being well and unforeseen circumstances aside.”

This has undoubtedly been a difficult few weeks for Sturgeon. She has gone from being the media darling who could do no wrong, to one that is having to face difficult questions over her party’s judgement and record.

But she faces such adversity and an election with the comfort blanket of astronomical poll ratings and a weak opposition. Is it tough at the top?

 “You know, I have to laugh, not in a dismissive way, but I think every couple of months I have read this has been my toughest week in office and however many weeks 11 months make up of me being in this job, I can’t point to a week that has been easy and if you want an easy life, don’t become First Minister of your country.

“But am I still enjoying it? Absolutely, yes.”

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