Readers' Letters: Sturgeon must accept her time in the spotlight is over

What Ms Sturgeon fails to understand is that in this country, we are all still allowed to pass comment on public figures. If you don’t want people to be talking about you, then you withdraw from that sphere.

Ms Sturgeon obviously craves attention. That is fine when things are going in your favour, but in recent years the wind has changed direction, and the walls have been closing in on her from all sides. Ms Sturgeon was never a political leader of any great substance, and if more people had been asking questions sooner, they would have discovered that many years ago. A little critical analysis has revealed what all those within the political and media bubble have been unable to see up to now – that she should try to lecture or advise others really is astonishing.

Ms Sturgeon is obviously lacking in any self-awareness, and no longer has access to the support or advice she once did. She needs to withdraw from public life completely, and not be constantly trying to win battles that she will almost certainly lose. She certainly will not compete with JK Rowling in the book writing world, and her one political skill of being able to talk over and interrupt other people is not going to help her now.

Ultimately, she failed as a politician, and judging by her book she will not succeed in the literary world either. Does Ms Sturgeon no longer have friends who can point these things out to her? It appears not.

Victor Clements, Aberfeldy, Perth and Kinross

Shared failures

It’s well known that if someone says something often enough they are more likely to be believed. That seems to be the tactic of an intransigent Nicola Sturgeon who continues to say she knew nothing of her estranged husband Peter Murrell’s crimes (Scotland on Sunday, 9 August).

Most people would have left the political scene gracefully and concentrated on other things but LBC presenter Iain Dale, hardly an expert in Scottish politics, gave Sturgeon another chance to put the record straight at the Fringe. While few Scots care anymore, Dale was clearly cashing in on a wider audience.

While Sturgeon did not repeat her attack on John Swinney’s leadership, when she claimed the recent Holyrood election campaign lacked vision, both she and Swinney look incompetent in their reputational race to the bottom. Both backed Humza Yousaf’s candidacy for first minister over rising star Kate Forbes, and that turned out a disaster; Swinney chose his friend Murrell as party CEO; both failed to read public opinion on gender self-ID; and the investigation of former Sturgeon mentor Alex Salmond ended in farce, with Salmond cleared and she accused of a cover-up. I could go on…

Their inability to judge character is mindblowing, yet Swinney, Sturgeon and the hapless Yousaf have led this country for the last 12 years. To paraphrase Sturgeon, it feels like most Scots are serving a sentence for a crime we didn’t commit. Don’t come to us for sympathy.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Self-deluded

The self-deluded grandeur of the former first minister is laid bare for all to see in Jenny Lindsay’s article “Nicola Sturgeon is only one loyal to the cultivation of her own self-image” (Perspective, 10 August). As is well documented in the article, Sturgeon does everything which was, to her while at the head of the regime, anathema. The most galling thing is that she continually gets a stage to pronounce her “wisdom” and vitriol. Oh, to see the day she is sat centre stage when JK Rowling and/or Joanna Cherry march out to have a wee chinwag.

While Sturgeon said that she “detested the Tories”, I will desist from giving her ammunition by letting her know how I really feel about her, for fear that my remarks would instantly be described as misogynistic. The worst leader of a party in the history of the UK (I include Liz Truss), this woman has done more damage to women’s and girls rights than anyone in recent history. The longer she is given a stage to spout from, the longer I will have to suppress my thoughts on “the blindest wife ever" and “a world-class misogynist”. Thanks JK, for helping me be more eloquent than I feel I should be.

David Millar, Lauder, Scottish Borders

Nothing to say?

Nicola Sturgeon is going out of her way to distance herself from her husband, Peter Murrell. She is not going to visit him in prison and she seems determined to cut him out of her life. Given this declaration from Ms Sturgeon, why is she so adamant that the transcript of her “no comment” police interview is not released to the public?

She says he never came clean to her so one must assume she had no useful information to give to the police. Why not just publish it?

Gerald Edwards, Glasgow

Happy accidents

It is easy to understand why governments are being urged to spend more on brain cancer research (“Archie's brain cancer plea to Burnham must be heeded”, Christine Jardine, 10 August), but history tells us that advances in treating such horrible diseases are more likely to come from biomedical research in general than research that focuses specifically on the disease.

When I was a Dean of Medicine I got appeals to focus research on particular diseases. I replied using the example of Alexander Fleming's discovery of penicillin, which happened when he was studying staphylococcus variants identified by the colour of their colonies on an agar plate. A colleague downstairs was investigating asthma and moulds. One drifted upstairs and lodged on one of Fleming's agar plates. It turned out to be one of the best penicillin- producing moulds ever found.

In the year before Fleming's discovery the Viennese psychiatrist Julius Wagner-Jauregg was awarded the Nobel Prize for discovering that malaria-induced fever stopped or alleviated general paralysis of the insane, a lethal brain complication of syphilis, the most common cause of death in mental hospitals, and the subject of intensive research for years. Malaria helped fewer than half of the patients. Many still died, a few from malaria. Penicillin cures 99 per cent.

Fleming's work was funded by the UK Medical Research Council. It still funds much research in Scotland. It is hard to think of a more beneficial bonus that comes from the Union.

Hugh Pennington, Aberdeen

Off your chest

“You can’t have a baby, you haven’t got a womb! Where’s the foetus gonna gestate? Gonna keep it in a box?” Remember this scene from Monty Python film The Life of Brian? When People’s Front of Judea leader John Cleese tells fellow PFJ member Eric Idle he can’t be a mother, another activist insists that he should nevertheless have the right to have babies, which can be symbolic of their struggle against the Romans. “It can be symbolic of his struggle against reality,” mutters Cleese.

Providing £261,838 in direct funding to a LGBTQ+ charity which promotes male breastfeeding is, similarly, symbolic of the Scottish government’s continuing struggle against a great many aspects of reality.

In total, nearly three quarters of a million pounds from taxpayers’ cash has been squandered on this absurd practice.

Retired midwife Rona McCall (Letters, 6 August) eloquently makes the case against “Trans women using public money and NHS resources to ‘chest feed’ in order to validate their beliefs”.

Hormones and other medication have to be administered in order for this process to happen and a tiny quantity of milk produced. This is in no way in the interest of the child and raises serious questions of medical ethics. Then again, sustaining minority fantasies at colossal expense is what the virtue-signalling SNP does best.

Martin O’Gorman, Edinburgh

Jock’s mongrels

Sahaj Kamra wrote in The Scotsman, under the heading “We're all Jock Tamson's Bairns” (30 July), that racist demonstrations, anti-refugee protests and increasingly hostile rhetoric are causing life blighting fear among minority ethnic communities in Scotland.

The mention of Jock Tamson struck a chord with me and reminded me of the deep DNA test I took some years ago and its rather surprising results. It established that I, along with some others I suppose, came out of Africa about 80,000 years ago.

My DNA results showed that I was 19 per cent South East Asian, 34 per cent Mediterranean and 47 per cent Northern European, which is, of course, Viking.

So, despite having several generations of Scottish ancestry behind me, and bearing evidence of the ginger gene accompanied by the classic small frame and peelie wallie skin, it seems possible Jock Tamson was a Zulu and I'm descended from Sinbad the Sailor, Zorba the Greek and Noggin the Nog. Oh, and of course, Genghis Khan, but then aren't we all?

Simply put, we're all just one big family and one day, maybe, we'll all be singing along to Melting Pot by Blue Mink.

Ian McElroy, Thurso, Caithness, Highland

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