Nicola Sturgeon: Former SNP First Minister details how she nearly quit politics

The former First Minister had earned her seat as a list MSP but was unhappy at having not won the constituency outright.

She told an audience in her current Glasgow Southside constituency that there was a moment where she nearly quit.

“I wasn’t sure whether I wanted to spend that much more time in politics,” she said.

“That changed. The rest is history. But that was a kind of significant moment.”

Ms Sturgeon was speaking at the Govanhill International Carnival and Festival on the evening the first extracts of her memoir were released.

The former SNP leader stood in the 1997 General Election against Mohammed Sarwar who won the seat for Labour and became the first Asian MP in the UK.

In the first Scottish parliamentary election in 1999 she stood again as the SNP candidate for the Govan constituency but lost.

However, Ms Sturgeon said she knew she was almost certain to be elected because she was top of the regional list in Glasgow.

But this was not how she wanted to come to be an MSP.

“I wasn't particularly happy in myself in the first term of parliament because I was elected as a list MSP,” she said, adding that she felt she had failed by not winning the seat.

After the first session of the Scottish parliament she thought about leaving politics and returning to law.

In 1992, she said, she was the youngest candidate in the UK and stood against David Marshall for Labour.

“I used to go around the constituency with a loud speaker and chanting, ‘David Marshall is passed his sell by date. It's time for a younger alternative’.

Ms Sturgeon is currently older now than David Marshall was at the time.

Having seen the difficulties her colleague Mhairi Black, the former MP who recently quit the party, faced at Westminster, Ms Sturgeon said she is now relieved she didn’t go to London as a young woman.

Talking about her book, Ms Sturgeon said she worked with the same editor who helped complete ex-New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s memoir and former German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s book.

She said that this would be the one and only memoir she writes - before joking that she might think twice if “the price is right”.

Parts of the book were “cathartic to write” and had to be cut back by 50 per cent as the first draft was so long.

She was determined, she said, not to use it to “settle scores”.

“Some people will read it and love it. Some people will read it and hate it. Some people will hate it before they even read it,” MsSturgeon added.

“It’s very personal and so I am slightly terrified of it being out in the world.”

It was easy to write about her childhood Sturgeon said, because it was “happy and stable” but she was keen to ensure her parents had read and were comfortable with that section.

Having made her disdain for Donald Trump clear, Ms Sturgeon said Donald Trump had done her a favour generating extra publicity for the book by being critical of her last week.

She went on to say that the book details an incident in Bute House where she and her staff “effectively kidnapped” the then-Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

Asked about the situation in Palestine by an audience member, Ms Sturgeon replied: “I don't think there's anybody, certainly in my constituency, who doesn't know my views on these issues.

“I support Palestinian statehood, and I believe what's happening in Gaza right now is genocide, and I think it important that is vocalised, and that people express that very clearly.”