Frankly — Nicola Sturgeon’s memoir of Scottish politics vs personal life

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Addressing her Scottish National party just before she became her nation’s first female first minister in 2014, Nicola Sturgeon had the almost “out-of-body” sensation that her younger self was nearby. 

“The shy, dour, always self-doubting, frumpy girl was standing in the wings watching a confident, articulate, almost stylish version of herself bestride the stage and wondering, ‘Who is that woman? Is she real?’ ” Sturgeon recounts in her memoir Frankly. 

The moment says much about the inner life of one of the most influential UK politicians of modern times. Sturgeon played a central role in the 2014 independence referendum that rocked the three century-old union between Scotland and England. As first minister — she took office just after the referendum — she kept the flame of Scottish independence alight and won international renown as a champion of progressive causes from gender-balanced government to action against climate change.

Yet the self-doubt — combined with the self-described “burning ambition” that helped Sturgeon transform herself from bookish working-class teenager into polished political performer — also appears to have ensured that power was always more burden than pleasure.

It is an often moving account of the challenges women face in a male-dominated political culture

This book is a lively though not revelatory account of how the independence issue came to dominate politics in Scotland, where about half of voters now support ending the union. It is also an often moving account of the challenges women face in a male-dominated political culture.

Sturgeon’s willingness to work ferociously hard to master complex briefs was central to her success and helped her provide reassuring leadership during the Covid pandemic — an achievement often contrasted with that of then UK prime minister Boris Johnson. Sturgeon is surely correct when she argues that a female leader would never get away with Johnson’s chaotic approach to politics. “The lack of detail, stuttering incoherence and dishevelled appearance would herald any woman’s downfall,” she writes.

At her peak, Sturgeon had a remarkable ability to connect with people outside politics. But Scotland’s most popular politician was also one of its most polarising and this is at heart a story of political failure.

Sturgeon’s bitter rift with her predecessor as SNP leader, Alex Salmond, sparked in 2018 by two civil servants’ harassment complaints against him that dated to his time as first minister, shattered the unity of the independence movement.

Frankly, which despite the author’s deep love of literature is written in a lucid rather than literary style, gives only a brief account of a feud that nearly toppled Sturgeon — although she takes pains to unpick claims by Salmond, who died last year, that she was part of a broad conspiracy against him. She also points out that while her mentor was later acquitted of sexual misconduct, his defence accepted he had at times acted “inappropriately”. Salmond himself said he had two drink-fuelled sexual encounters with two much more junior colleagues at his official residence, but that they were consensual.

There were plenty of other setbacks during Sturgeon’s time in office, including the failure to narrow the education attainment gap between better and worse-off pupils — a goal Sturgeon once called her “defining mission”. Frankly does not delve into the SNP’s use, under her watch, of donations raised to fight a second referendum for other party expenses — an issue that sparked complaints to the police that led to her arrest and that of her husband and party chief executive Peter Murrell. Sturgeon, who announced in January that the couple would divorce, was in March cleared by police investigating SNP finances. Murrell was charged in April 2024 in connection with the alleged embezzlement of party funds.

Sturgeon does usefully lay out why she could not find a way past the refusal of UK prime ministers to approve a second independence referendum. On transgender rights, she still believes she was right to push to make changes of legal gender easier, but admits wishing she had “hit the pause button” in 2022 as it became one of the most polarising issues in Scottish politics.

For aspiring politicians, Frankly is also a cautionary tale on the importance of a life outside politics. Sturgeon’s devotion to her craft and lack of a life beyond family, friends and her beloved books took a psychological toll. Explaining her decision to step down as first minister in 2023, she writes that she had been “Nicola the politician” virtually all her adult life, adding: “I was starting to worry that I didn’t really know who Nicola the person was.”

Frankly by Nicola Sturgeon Macmillan £28, 480 pages

Mure Dickie is the FT’s former Scotland correspondent

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