The pressures of leading a country through a pandemic in the face of 24/7 scrutiny have unsurprisingly taken their toll on Nicola Sturgeon.
After eight years in a job where switching off meant interviewing a Turkish feminist author at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, Scotland’s longest-serving first minister has had enough.
She is not, she said earlier, “expecting violins. But I am a human being as well as a politician”.
Politicians do expect, and should get, pelters for bad decisions, missed deadlines, unfulfilled manifesto promises, policy U-turns and financial funny business.
They should not be quizzed about why they don’t have children and forced to account for the horrific behaviour of their predecessor.
But Sturgeon has faced the nastiest misogynist abuse that both sides of the independence debate can hand out.
These haters and finger pointers, with their unmoveable opinions and honking Wee Jimmy Krankie, chat are one of the reasons she gave for bowing out. Sturgeon is not the first leader to be burnt out after the demands of Covid. New Zealand’s premier, Jacinda Ardern, quit last month because she had “not enough in the tank to do the job justice”.
Sturgeon’s speech at Bute House this morning boiled down to much the same thing. She also pointed to what she has given up to give her all to the job.
Her niece and youngest nephew, babies when she entered government in 2007, are near their 17th birthdays. They have watched her on TV rather than having her at family events. Their childhood is just one of the things Sturgeon has given up to lead Scotland.
As the years of relentless grind catch up with Sturgeon, it’s inevitable she will look back at all the things she has missed. After delivering eight election victories, it’s time for the First Minister to clock off and Auntie Nicola to take over.
To sign up to the Daily Record Politics newsletter, click here.
