DOROTHY-GRACE ELDER: Sturgeon ran the SNP like a Trumpton Gestapo, and as a brand new MSP I quickly realized that even her bottom needed to be revered

Is Nicola Sturgeon attempting a serious comeback, sponsored by Brasso for her brass neck?

Firstly, as the former First Minister announced yesterday, she is to end her marriage to Peter Murrell, who was charged with embezzlement of funds from the SNP.

Secondly, she has attempted to soften her image with appearances in comedy tours and book events.

And, finally, she has launched another attempt to blacken the name of her mentor, Alex Salmond, with a cruel blow to his widow.

Sturgeon claimed in a newspaper interview last week that Salmond was: ‘Really rough on people. Many times I intervened to stop him.’

The mirage of Sturgeon intervening to stop trouble is a sick joke to any of us who suffered from her behaviour.

Sturgeon has had smiling lessons in recent years but to those who suffered from her behaviour, she maintains the chill factor of an open mortuary drawer.

To cause a widow and family more hurt and distress in their grief is taboo.

Nicola Sturgeon has announced she is ending her marriage to former SNP chief executive Peter Murrell. Pictured: The couple at St Paul’s Cathedral, London, in 2022

The former Scottish first minister revealed the news via a post on her Instagram account

Dorothy-Grace Elder is former MSP in the Scottish Parliament 

Yet Nicola Sturgeon did that to Moira Salmond, Alex Salmond’s gentle, 87-year-old widow, stirring again against her former mentor just six weeks after his memorial service in Edinburgh’s St Giles’ Cathedral.

A multitude lined the streets four deep, in genuine grief over his death from a heart attack at 69 last October. 

That heart attack came after years of fighting off harm aided, he always said, by his former protege Sturgeon, whose career was built on his mentoring.

During my years as an SNP MSP, I did not personally see any bullying from Alex Salmond. I found him warm, witty and encouraging of those who worked hard. 

He was undoubtedly Holyrood’s outstanding achiever, commissioning, for instance, a bridge that was built on time.

Sturgeon’s biggest flaw was that she squandered time on petty playground spites, cronyism and failed policies. 

Sturgeon was, from that first parliament, in a clutch of cronies referred to in the SNP group as ‘The Trumpton Gestapo’ for playground bullying and what was called ‘the jackboot tendency’.

In my first encounter with her, I learned she expected that even her backside should be revered.

In 1999, shortly after we were all elected, I was asked to be among ‘the wallpaper’ MSPs on the SNP conference platform.

I chose a seat three rows from the front to allow the egos to land. But Sturgeon was late and had to sit at the back. After much passing of notes to the then group official, he wrote to me saying: ‘Please give Nicola your seat. She is a front bencher.’

She was then only 29, I was a middle-aged mum. My bum and I protested by refusing to shift.

Thereafter Sturgeon never spoke to me in the three years we shared a Glasgow office during the first Parliament. 

I don’t know why, other than her dislike of journalists and maybe her backside’s rebuffed superiority.

Not speaking to some women is a trait – years later, Joanna Cherry said Sturgeon never had a proper conversation with her. I am a feminist – it never occurred to me Sturgeon was one until she claimed this in public.

Ms Sturgeon and Mr Murrell began their relationship in 2003 and were married at a civil ceremony in Glasgow’s west end in 2010

The couple, pictured in 2022, ruled at the top of the SNP and Scottish politics for many years before Ms Sturgeon stood down as first minister and party leader in March 2023

After Salmond quit as SNP leader in summer of 2000, John Swinney took over and there was no control. In fact, John bore the imprint of the last time Sturgeon sat on him.

When I complained about a man in the SNP whom two women said acted abusively, I was threatened with discipline – not the man. Some men were protected.

The other point of danger came when it seemed a non-crony might succeed in a public cause.

I was preparing to go to Brussels to plead a pollution case for Glasgow and, back home, my Glasgow founded Chronic Pain campaign was set for some progress with the then Lab-Lib executive.

But I needed the backing of the Parliament’s first health committee, which I was on for three years until Sturgeon became the SNP’s health spokesman.

Suddenly, the SNP chief whip sent for me to say: ‘Nicola and John have decided you’re to leave the health committee. You’re being replaced by an Aberdeen MSP. It’s all arranged.’

When I protested, the reply was: ‘These are instructions from Nicola and John. You must obey.’ Obey! Such people had seen too many old war films.

The reason, given second hand, was: ‘They thought Glasgow has too many MSPs on health.’

Haud me back – the UK’s sickest city overrepresented? Sturgeon would be the only Glasgow SNP MSP left.

I was ‘to leave immediately’ – so no chance to stay a few weeks until I pleaded for Glasgow in Brussels. No discussion, Sturgeon had ruled I did leave – not the health committee, but the SNP, after 26 years, and became an independent for my last year, free of harm.

That’s how I was able to remain on health and helped win me the European pollution case, still referenced today. The rest of the health committee – Labour, Liberal and Conservative, all rallied round and had been quite shocked.

Moira Salmond did not name Sturgeon in a statement she released on Sunday, but said attacks on her husband after his death when he could not defend himself had caused her and the family ‘great distress, hurt and pain and were deeply unfair.’

The Court of Session found years ago that Sturgeon’s Scottish Government had acted unlawfully against Alex Salmond, costing Scottish taxpayers over £500,000 for her Government’s mistakes.

A later High court trial by jury cleared him of over more than a dozen claims from women. But still the cruelty continues.

This could be the first time in Scotland that a widow has had to plead publicly to end the ‘hurt and pain to a family’ and appeal heartbreakingly: ‘Please let Alex rest in peace.’

Shame on Sturgeon.

Dorothy-Grace Elder is former MSP. She sat as an Independent between 2002 and 2003.

She first sat as a SNP member from 1999 until she left the party in 2002.