Last week, Nicola Sturgeon delivered her farewell speech at Holyrood. She’s also hinted that she wants to update last year’s memoirs with a fresh chapter. Here, Kevin McKenna imagines how it might read.

"You know, people always ask me why the SNP never seemed to have a Plan B to unlock the door to Scottish independence. This has caused me to do a lot of soul-searching. I think I’m now in a position though, to offer a solution to John and my former cabinet colleagues.

You see, my severance package has given me the economic freedom to travel the length and breadth of the UK to solicit the views of the ordinary people in our country’s book festival sector. These stalwart souls are the backbone of Scotland and the UK in their pashminas and red corduroys. They are well placed to provide a street-level analysis of the challenges people face in their everyday lives.

Someone cruelly suggested last week that I must have needed a satnav to find my way back to Holyrood last week to deliver my farewell speech, so seldom have I actually been there in recent years while representing the good people of Govanhill. This misses the point, though.

Read more by Kevin McKenna

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A warm welcome from Sturgeon ... but book confessions leave me cold'

Holyrood Assisted Dying debate was a sickening display

My constituents know that I’m promoting their neighbourhood everywhere I go and seeking inward investment from the influential literary communities of Cambridge and Stratford. I’m constantly seeking to identify areas of common interests between these places........

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