Max Stafford's Kennel

Nicola Sturgeon – First Minister of Scotland

Readers hoping for gossip will be sorely disappointed. I’m about to describe the events that took place before and after meeting our admired First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon, (for the second time) but for those not yet had that pleasure I’ll convey what many  have perceived of her. She’s highly attentive, in control and absolutely focussed. She exudes authority, but not the disengaged aloofness of the moneyed classes, or the verbal correctness of a high court judge. It’s that old fashioned thing called unassailable integrity.

Two further observations: She practises the caution of those who learn a first meeting is what people are selling her, a built-in defence needed by any public person who receives praise and abuse from those it is her sworn duty to protect, and the society they live in. And secondly, she reads Grouse Beater. How often she read it I didn’t ask.

Doon…