Yesterday the International Business Times asked me to write a profile of Nicola Sturgeon. I think my hard-earned reputation as a propagandist may take a slight knock with this one - it's not an entirely one-sided hagiography! Anyway, see what you think - you can read it HERE.
I don't think anyone is going to take you to task for that James, it's a good article. I think it brings out the character of someone who was too smart to want to rock the boat when she was younger, but who is quite capable of sailing the ship by herself now.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I do wonder about though is the oft-repeated line that she has scarcely worked outside politics. She's a qualified solicitor, and she was what - 29 or 30 - before she was elected to Holyrood. As far as I know she never had an SNP internal salaried position. She worked as a solicitor for several years as far as I know, and until Holyrood was on the horizon in 1997 can't really have been sure she'd ever be anything else.
DeleteThe first few years of your professional life, when you work full time and gain experience in the profession you studied at Uni for so long are extremely formative and can't be dismissed as minimal life experience.
Indeed Rolfe and her family have obviously kept her well grounded. Not much room for a cloistered political life in that part of Ayrshire.
DeleteIt's also a fact that Nicola would have been eaten alive during the first Indyref and those dozens upon dozens of town hall meetings if she wasn't totally at ease with the scottish public and herself. It's no act and you can contrast her with the uber-Blairite Murphy shouting at four guys and dug for proof.
She's also less autocratic than Salmond was as I've heard from folk at Bute House. Salmond had a different style and needed things done after a long period of Labour and Lib Dem rule so it's understandable to a degree.
No hagiography is necessary. She is "Oor Nicola" and we like her just the way she is.
ReplyDeleteFair and concise...I hope this gets read widely in the UK.
ReplyDeleteIt's truly amazing that Nicola Sturgeon has become the dominant personality of the 2015 GE, leading a party that is usually all but ignored and squeezed during such events. We were so lucky to have FM Salmond. To have FM Salmond, followed by FM Sturgeon is, frankly, unbelievable.
ReplyDeleteSo 50% SNP =Independence...that's what Dewar said!
ReplyDeleteOnly if that's on the manifesto though, and it isn't.
DeleteI thought the term automaton was rather harsh. I think a young person developing their style can come across as "stiff" or "forced" and they may over practise their message but that is very far from being an automaton. I feel you painted an unfair image. I was quite surprised by your eagreness to make that point.
ReplyDeleteIt read as if some background history was being withheld?
Well, that's a bizarre question. Simple answer - no.
DeleteJames I enjoy your technical assessment of data. However I don't understand why such a short article gave such focus to the early part of a young Nicolas career as an "individual opinion".
DeleteYou asked for feedback and it remains that the article seemed far removed from your normal style of structured facts.
I wonder how many of us would appear for review if clips of our early public speaking were analysed.
I see no rationale in the comment made (automaton) other than a very personal one. Given the extent to which you built that into your story I still do not know why.
I'll allow you the last word as I hold your normal work in high regard as already stated..
I wasn't particularly asking for feedback, but I don't object to it either. I've done quite a few articles for the IBTimes, dating back to the end of 2012, and as far as I can recall every single one has been an opinion piece. So I'm struggling to see how this one looks like some kind of departure. Of course "automaton" is a personal assesment, as would be any other descripitive word that I could have applied to her.
DeleteI suppose I could have just bored everyone to tears with "she was born in 1970, she studied law, blah blah blah".
Just been asked on YouGov how I voted as I answered that I have a Postal Vote, which I sent of today, to a question in the Survey.
ReplyDeleteI understood this is illegal as it would be construed as an Exit Poll which cannot be published till the polls close on 7th May.
Can you confirm this id the case, or is it only if You Gove publish the information.
I'm very confused on this point, because I can clearly remember YouGov doing this in past elections, but my namesake James was adamant yesterday that it would be illegal. Maybe they're just collecting the information and keeping it private - that certainly couldn't be illegal.
DeleteIt would be very interesting data to collect. How early to people postal vote, what percentage, how to the postal vote demographics break down etc.
DeleteAlso, with postal voting on the increase (I think?) election after election, there has to come a point where it starts to have an impact on their ability to produce polling results.
OT
ReplyDeleteThe political geniuses at Political Betting have been discussing who might replace Jim Murphy. Believe it or not the 2 names they have come up with so far as convincing, talented operators with a solid base are.... not making this up.... Kezia Dugdale and James Kelly.
It is only a matter of time before one of them tips Jackie Baillie as a popular, down to earth plain speaker.
They're talking a modicum of sense for once. Quite clearly I'm the only possible successor for Murphy.
DeleteIt's an interesting point though.
DeleteHistorically, Labour has tended to generate a lot of political heavyweights from Scotland. Cook, Smith, Brown, Galloway, Dewar etc etc.
But the current bench looks pretty thin. In fact I'd say that even nationally they have a 'gravitas gap' going on just now.
There may not actually be that many lining up to be the next fallguy or gal considering they've all watched Gray then Lamont and now likely Murphy in line for the customary bucket of shit treatment from Labour HQ in London.
DeleteThey'll need the memory of a goldfish or truly gigantic reserves of naivety to expect it to be different for them in 2016.
Course there is the delicious irony of it now being Murphy after he was first in charge of the "root and branch reform" (which of course changed nothing) after they piled the blame onto Gray and then Murphy and Curran stabbed Lamont in the back.
What goes around comes around. ;-)
I saw another article elsewhere, suggesting James Kelly was a prime candidate. Which is weird, as your namesake, James, has always struck me as one of the weaker (says a lot) of the identifiable Scottish Labour mob.
DeleteIs there a James Kelly astroturf campaign? Is such a thing possible?!
DeleteThe only argument I could see in James Kelly's favour is that Labour and the SNP have always had constituency members as their leader. Listers are still, I think, widely seen as second-class MSPs, and anointing one as leader could be seen as making the party a second-tier one like the Tories.
DeleteIf Murphy goes, though, I think they'll just go with Kezia to make the transition as painless as possible.
If James Kelly becomes leader for 2016 the Labour Party are utterly doomed in Scotland. If Jackie Baillie becomes leader for 2016 the Labour Party are utterly doomed in Scotland. If Kezia Dugdale becomes leader for 2016 the Labour Party are utterly doomed in Scotland.
DeleteGeorge Foulkes?
DeletePerhaps Hanzala Malik's hour has come at last.
DeleteJames Kelly MSP as SLAB's leader would almost certainly mark the end of the road for them. I don't think I have heard Kezia Dugdale when she is not going on about the SNP being bad. She seems utterly obsessed by the SNP. I reckon she probably talks more about them than our own party.
DeleteI knew her at Glasgow Uni and to be honest I didn't see her as a future SNP leader or FM but then we didn't have a Parly in those dark days of the Thatcher years. I think her abilities flowered in later years.
ReplyDeleteI think some of the present Tory cabinet might also have met her then at Glasgow when the Oxford rabble came up to Glasgow Uni to lose debates :) She is or was no stranger to taking on the toffs.
She? Which she? Kezia or Jackie Baillie?
DeleteNeither of those two :)
DeleteGood article. The only Sturgeon I've ever known has been the one we know today. Back in her automaton days I'd most likely have still been in nappies so it's interesting to hear how she's developed as a politician.
ReplyDeleteHarsh but fair Id say. It should also serve s a reminder to us SNiPpers not to go over the top about certain other 'career politicians!'
ReplyDeleteYes, but it's not quite the same thing. The career politicians we criticise pursued a political career single-mindedly from the outset. Some even chose a party they didn't fundamentally support because the career prospects were better. (I was told yesterday that George Foulkes confessed to a university friend that although he was a natural Tory he intended to pursue a career in the Labour party because the prospects were better.)
DeleteNicola was always committed to independence even when the career prospects in the SNP were poor. She could easily have been a solicitor all her life, fighting periodic unsuccessful election campaigns. It just so happened that the Scottish Parliament came along and with it a huge increase in the available SNP political positions at exactly the right time in her career.
For sure. Salmond could have e.g. been a UK Labour PM if he'd wanted. Certainly cabinet. Hell if Broon, Murphy, Alexander could manage that...
DeleteInstead he opted for the party with a handful of MPs which 644 odd others mutter 'Sean Connery, Sean Connery' over when they try to speak. That and who's sole aim is to terminate their employment as MPs.
People will be writing and talking about Alex Salmond long after the likes of Murphy and Alexander are completely forgotten (disappeared without trace!). Memories of Broon will linger a little longer, but for all the wrong reasons.
DeleteExcellent James, you have done our Nicola proud and not done too badly yourself. Said for ages that the independence side had all the talent and you are one of it's shining lights.
ReplyDelete"Inevitably she fell short, but established her local legend as a street fighter by securing the only anti-Labour swing in the whole of Britain, as the Blair juggernaut swept all before it everywhere else. Her political home hasn't budged from that part of Glasgow in the years since."
ReplyDeleteAt the risk of being pedantic, the swing point is not correct since Bethan Green and Bow and Bradford West had Lab to Con swings in 1997 (due to local ethnic politics).
That should be Bethnal Green and Bow, of course.
ReplyDeleteI suspect that some of Nicola's success was her ability to learn from Alex Salmond. Equally likely was his recognition that she understood what he was putting forth.
ReplyDeleteOne of the things Westminster fears most is people of integrity who understand what the elite is about getting into Westminster.
The SNP are just a tool to get a job done. Once the job is done the tool is discarded
ReplyDeleteJust completed a Panelbase poll. Questions on voting intention, past voting history and opinion of each leader. How would you vote now in an indy ref.
ReplyDeleteI remember that campaign in Govan 1997 and what a campaign it was. Nicolas wee blue battle bus, her red jacket and the wee campaign rooms on Govan Road. We had Labour terrified and in the last 2 weeks they pulled in national resources to help out Govan Labour Party . Sarwar ended up with a 2800 majority considering the huge surge to Labour in Blair's landslide it was a remarkable result
ReplyDeleteAnyone who was about in 1997 could see that Nicola was a star in the making