Attention seeker, me? says Nicola... at Fringe

NICOLA Sturgeon has hit back at Liz Truss over her ‘attention seeker’ put-down – ironically at a packed show at the Fringe.

The Tory leadership frontrunner made the comment about the First Minister last month at an election hustings, saying the best policy in relation to Ms Sturgeon was simply to ‘ignore her’.

But yesterday Ms Sturgeon, in her second appearance at the Festival in a week, described Ms Truss’s comments as ‘a bit silly’.

Speaking at a politics show at the Gilded Balloon, she told the audience: ‘Firstly, attention seeking, and I think Liz probably does know this, is kind of part of your job.

‘As a politician you have to get attention for your policies and things you stand for and the things you believe but calling me an attention seeker? That is her view.’

She also warned that when it comes to insults, ‘I can give as good as I get so she should probably just be warned about that in advance’.

The SNP leader added: ‘I think the more serious comment, that I should be ignored – and there are people in my family who have been saying that about me for years – it is not new.

‘People in Scotland, some people like me, some people loathe me, some people vote for my party, some people don’t, but I am the democratically elected First Minister and you can only be in that position if significant numbers of people do vote for you.

‘So when she says that she thinks I should be ignored, I think what a lot of people in Scotland hear is that she is saying that the democratic votes and choices and Scotland should be ignored and effectively the country should be ignored and I don’t think that is appropriate.’

Speaking at a panel event yesterday afternoon, hosted by broadcaster Ayesha Hazarika, Ms Sturgeon said Boris Johnson was the only Prime Minister she had worked with who was ‘a disgrace to the office’. Ms Sturgeon said the idea that parties were taking place during the Covid-19 pandemic ‘blew her mind’.

She said: ‘He was a disgrace, let’s be honest.’

Four Prime Ministers have been in Downing Street since Ms Sturgeon took office in 2014 and she joked to audience members that she never thought she would ‘look back fondly’ on Theresa May as PM.

When asked who she would prefer to see as the next Prime Minister, Ms Sturgeon shrugged and laughed and said neither of them would win an election in Scotland.

She branded the choices facing voters in England as ‘terrible’.