Former Scottish first minister Nicola Sturgeon has revealed she might move to London as she sometimes can’t breathe under the ‘goldfish bowl scrutiny’ in Scotland
Nicola Sturgeon has said she might move to London as she sometimes can’t breathe under the “goldfish bowl scrutiny” in Scotland.
The former Scottish first minister, who served in the role between 2014 and 2023, said she’d like to move out of her home country for a period to “reset my perspective”.
And she said the media attention she gets in Scotland was akin to “suffocating”, saying she sometimes feels if she breathes “in the wrong way”, it will be a news story. It comes as BBC viewers cringe at Kemi Badenoch’s ‘fields of wheat’ moment.
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Speaking to BBC’s Newscast podcast, Ms Sturgeon said: “I belong in Scotland. It’s my home. But I think being physically out of Scotland for a period might just help to reset my perspective and to be more selfish about it, just remove me a little bit from that kind of goldfish bowl scrutiny that I still live under in Scotland.
“Again, I don’t mean that as a complaint, it’s just the reality that Scotland’s quite a small country. It’s quite a small body politic, and I still, sometimes it feels, and this is very subjective, that I just have to breathe the wrong way, and somebody’s writing a story about it, it does sometimes feel very – suffocating is maybe putting it too strongly – but I feel sometimes I can’t breathe freely in Scotland. So yeah, maybe not abroad.
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Asked if England was an option, the former Scottish National Party (SNP) leader, who spearheaded campaigns for Scotland to be independent, added: “England is not yet a foreign country – would never be a foreign country – obviously, even when we’re independent… But this may shock many people to hear, but I love London.
“For one thing and another, I’m spending a reasonable amount of time in London at the moment, so, yeah, maybe a bit of time down here, who knows?”
Ms Sturgeon has this week been on a media tour to promote her upcoming memoir, titled Frankly, which is due to be released on August 14. In a series of interviews, she has discussed the police raid on her home and arrest of herself and former husband Peter Murrell, rumours surrounding her sexuality, her relationship with Alex Salmond, and a miscarriage she previously suffered.
In an interview with BBC Breakfast this morning, she also spoke in depth about the criticism her gender reform legislation faced. And she accused far right forces of trying to weaponise the issue of trans people.
She said she has been a “feminist all my life” and is someone who came into politics to champion the rights of of minorities, including trans people, who she described as “probably one of the most stigmatised groups in our society”.
“I don’t believe that trans rights and women’s rights are in opposition,” she continued. “I believe that we can further both, and actually furthering one actually helps further the other… I know many, many people, probably the majority of people who disagree with me on this issue come from a genuine place.
“But there are also people, and I don’t know how anybody can deny this, forces on the far right who’ve weaponised this issue, who want to, I think, use the trans issue to push back on rights more generally, whether those are gay rights or minority rights or women’s rights, actually some of the some of the abuse I’ve had on this issue, ironically, given that it’s often in the name of women’s safety, has been deeply misogynist.”
Asked if she would debate the issue with JK Rowling – who once infamously wore a T-shirt saying Ms Sturgeon was a ‘destroyer of women’s rights’ – the Scottish politician said: “I will debate with many people, but I don’t think JK Rowling would be willing to do that. But who knows, maybe she would.”
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