SNP hits out at Sturgeon’s political punditry on ITV as ‘pontification’

Nicola Sturgeon is facing an SNP backlash for “pontificating” on her party’s election disaster during a lucrative TV appearance.

The former first minister used her role as an analyst on ITV’s election night coverage to attack the SNP campaign and deny personal blame for the catastrophic nationalist rout.

One party insider compared her actions to Alex Salmond, who made unhelpful media interventions after he quit as first minister before he fell out with his former protégée.

The SNP, dominant in Scottish politics for more than a decade, was reduced to just nine seats, while Scottish Labour won 37 in a spectacular resurgence in its former heartlands.

SNP insiders said Ms Sturgeon, who remains an SNP MSP but has not spoken in the Holyrood chamber since January, had caused anger within the party.

“The election campaign was a disaster,” a senior party source said. 

“We are reaping the results of a succession of mistakes which began under Nicola.

“But the SNP is not very good at post mortems because they do not realise the corpse is dead.”

They added: “The ultimate bitter irony was to watch Nicola Sturgeon pontificating about all of this live on TV, referring to the SNP as ‘they’ as if this catastrophe was nothing at all to do with her.

“She is an absentee MSP and is simply not doing her job. She is hardly ever at Holyrood and when she does bother, she just sits around having coffees with her acolytes.

“If it carries on, opposition parties will start demanding her recall.”

While the fee Ms Sturgeon received for her appearance has not yet been disclosed, it is expected to be far higher than the £7,500 Ruth Davidson received for taking the same job in 2019.

The Telegraph has been told there was a “bidding war” involving other broadcasters for Ms Sturgeon’s election night services.

Another SNP source said Ms Sturgeon’s ITV appearance “hasn’t gone down well at all” within the party, even among socially liberal young members who tend to defend her.

“For me, having her on the results show was not the issue, it was what she said and how she said it,” they added.

“She continually referred to the SNP as ‘they’ which seemed like she was trying to distance herself from what happened when she was the main architect.

“It was eerily similar to Salmond after he resigned and then made unhelpful broadcast appearances.”

Jim Sillars, a former SNP deputy leader who has become a critic of the party, became the first prominent nationalist to publicly call for John Swinney to stand down as he also attacked Ms Sturgeon for her actions.

“People regarded her performance on ITV as ridiculous,” Mr Sillars said.

“She was pretending she had no responsibility for what happened when actually, it was a repudiation of the Sturgeon, Swinney and Yousaf administrations.

“I think Nicola Sturgeon and Swinney, who was her deputy, should feel utterly ashamed. 

“We have gone from 56 seats in 2015 to nine in the time those two have been in charge. Swinney still has his head in the sand, he’s in denial of reality.”

He added: “My view is with Swinney in charge, we will not recover. I’ve known him for many years, he’s always been a good number two but is not the person for the top job.

“He was tested previously and failed, he’s been tested again and the same answer has emerged. The best thing he can do for the party now is to consider his position.”

Mr Swinney, who only took over in May following Humza Yousaf’s disastrous tenure and was previously SNP leader between 2000 and 2004, on Friday insisted he had not even considered quitting.

Ms Sturgeon claimed on ITV that the SNP, which ditched her plan of declaring the election a “de facto referendum” on independence, had not campaigned hard enough on separation.

She said the party had “left themselves between two stools” on the constitution and that the issue “wasn’t really front and centre”.

She said she took her “share of responsibility” for the result but also pointed out she had been a serial election winner and denied that it was “somehow all my fault”.

Ms Sturgeon also criticised the SNP’s decision to tear up her power sharing pact with the far-Left Scottish Greens.

On Saturday, the Lib Dems declared victory in the final seat of the election to be declared, taking their Scottish tally to six.

Inverness, Skye and West Ross-shire, which had gone to a recount for technical reasons, was the former territory of former Lib Dem leader Charles Kennedy, who died weeks after he lost his seat to the SNP in 2015.

The SNP and Ms Sturgeon were approached for comment.

Sources have previously said any payment for her ITV appearance will be declared by Ms Sturgeon “in the normal way” in her Holyrood register of interests.