She’s back! It wouldn’t be a proper SNP jamboree without an appearance from the dear Leader, the self-identifying Chief Mammy of nationalist fervour, Nicola Sturgeon. As hard as she tried to claim her surprise visit to Aberdeen was not overshadowing her successor’s first party conference, Mr S wasn’t convinced that even she believed that…
With her entrance to the annual conference given a hero’s welcome, Sturgeon was swarmed by adoring activists as she crowed to journalists about her ‘fair amount of electoral success’. Asked about her successor, she declared to the assembled press pack: ‘I think Humza is doing a fantastic job as leader of the party and as First Minister, and I don’t think there is any doubt from what I’ve seen about who is in charge of this conference.’
But in a Freudian slip, Sturgeon fell back into First Minister mode, answering a question with ‘I am the leader…’ — before hastily correcting herself. Looks like there’s a back seat driver in that £110,000 battle bus. Quizzed by one hack on whether her upstaging of hapless Humza meant she was now the ‘Liz Truss of the SNP’, Sturgeon seem ruffled. ‘How long did it take you to think that up?’ she shot back. ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’ Touched a nerve…?
Sturgeon might have that hoped her appearance would energise an otherwise flat conference. But Mr S isn’t convinced that even a visit from the nationalist-in-chief can revive her party’s fortunes…
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