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Nicola Sturgeon: How I ruined her night - and her referendum campaign

7 6
yesterday

Before we do anything else, a word of thanks to Nicola Sturgeon, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. Unless you are festivalling in Edinburgh, August is such a dull month. But courtesy of two serving presidents and one former First Minister of Scotland, the news business has been booming.

For the US and Russian presidents the task of carving up the world to suit themselves goes on, but what of the rest of us now that the Frankly party is all but over?

As we donate well-thumbed copies to the charity shop (having first erased any sarky notes in the margins), I think we can agree it’s been fun delving into the past, but let’s get back to the here and now.

Except not everyone is ready to retire from the fray just yet. There was always a danger that Ms Sturgeon’s memoirs would bring grievances to the surface again. The combative personality of the author and the turbulent times she was writing about, particularly the referendum, made that inevitable.

Even so, some of the reaction has been fairly shocking in its intensity. We are now 11 years on, but if you look on social media or any comment forum it is summer 2014 all over again, and not in a good way. Was that really us? Did we say that, do that, think that? And if it was as bad as it looks, should Scotland follow the example of Ms Sturgeon and seek counselling?

BTW, I thought it a poor take on her fellow citizens when she revealed her initial reluctance to ask for help. “I’m from the West of Scotland,” she told the Sunday Times. “We don’t do things........

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