26 March 2023 , 17:52
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My first thought after meeting Nicola Sturgeon on the campaign trail in Glasgow many years ago was: “I didn’t know they still made pocket battleships on the Clyde.”
This diminutive young woman, a “nippy sweetie” as they say in those parts, bursting with political vitality, was clearly going places.
But not to Westminster, the centre of the universe for most ambitious wannabe-MPs, but Edinburgh, as part of a nationalist government for Scotland.
I have watched her career over the decades since with a mixture of admiration and dismay. Admiration, because she was so successful in her single-minded pursuit of her objectives, and dismay because she almost killed off the Labour Party in Scotland.
Nicola Sturgeon is pictured alongside Alex Salmond when she was his deputy (PA)
Queen Elizabeth II greets Nicola Sturgeon, during an audience at the Palace of Holyrood house in Edinburgh (POOL/AFP via Getty Images)