Nicola Sturgeon refused to discuss her record after eight years in office when she stepped down last week. There will be ‘plenty of time’ to reflect on that later, she replied soothingly. In the days since, the First Minister’s silence has continued. But not everyone can afford to take a break from the consequences of Sturgeon’s time in office.
Four male murderers are being held in women’s prisons in Scotland today. This became possible under a policy introduced months before she rose to the role of First Minister and championed thereafter. This same policy made it possible last month for a rapist, Isla Bryson, to be briefly incarcerated in a female prison too.
Only Nicola Sturgeon will know how influential the resulting political storm was in her decision to leave office. Yet there is no doubt that that her response to the Bryson scandal exposed a great weakness. Uncertain answers to basic questions about how Bryson should be defined and treated revealed that the First Minister had made herself champion of a cause she did not understand.
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