NICOLA Sturgeon said she is not out to “settle scores” in her memoir but made no promises that she might “ruffle” some feathers in her book next year.
The former first minister said her memoir, which is due to be published in August next year, will contain “absolutely honest” accounts from her time in politics, but added, “there are two sides to every story”.
Sturgeon was elected to Holyrood in 1999 and was Alex Salmond’s deputy from 2007 until 2014.
She took over as first minister following Salmond’s resignation from the role in the aftermath of the independence referendum and led the SNP until 2023.
The pair had a public fallout after the allegations of sexual misconduct made against Salmond while in office to both police and the Scottish Government. He was later cleared of the allegations.
At the time of Salmond’s death in October, the pair had reportedly not spoken in years.
Sturgeon told The Scotsman that she was now “deep into the edit” of her memoir and that she “never thought writing a book would be easy”.
“It’s been harder than I thought. I’ve got a greater respect now for what people like Val [McDermid] do,” she said.
“I’ve enjoyed the process, trying to take something big and in my case way over length and unwieldy, and moulding it into the thing you want. I’m starting to get a little bit stressed at how close it is now to publication.”
The former SNP leader added: “It dawned on me that in writing my own story, I’m impinging on other people’s. How much of other people’s stories do you feel you have the freedom to tell?
“I’ve not consciously gone into thinking ‘I’m not going to talk about this or that’, not consciously left things out. But obviously not everything can be in. So I’ve tried to include everything I think is relevant to the story I’m trying to tell.”
When asked if hurting someone’s feelings in her memoir is something she is worried about, Sturgeon said: “Em, no.
“I hope I’ve not gratuitously hurt anybody and actually there are not that many people I’ve got grievances with that I would want to do that, so no.
“I’ve tried to be honest and sometimes yeah, I guess there will be accounts in my memoir that are absolutely honest from my perspective. But somebody else might think ‘well my perspective on that is different’ because there are two sides to every story. But I certainly haven’t set out to write a memoir that is about settling scores because that’s of no interest to me.
“Hopefully my memoir is as much about the last 30 years of Scottish history, which have been quite eventful politically, as it is about me and my life. So, I’m not promising I won’t ruffle anybody’s feathers, but hopefully not too much.”
