Scotland's Education Secretary Mairi McAllan has dismissed Nicola Sturgeon's claims that the SNP's recent Holyrood election campaign lacked vision or big-picture thinking as "nonsense".
Sturgeon's foreword criticism
In a newly-published foreword to her memoir Frankly, former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon wrote that the SNP "rightly put Scottish independence centrally as an objective, but didn't aways bring alive the opportunities it offers for people in a tangible sense". She said there was a "lack of vision or big-picture thinking" from the SNP in the recent campaign, which saw the party win a fifth consecutive Holyrood victory in May, though without a majority.
McAllan's response
Speaking on BBC Radio Scotland's Breakfast programme on Tuesday, McAllan said: "I think that's a nonsense. We have just been returned to government with an absolutely whopping endorsement of our manifesto. It was a historic election result for the SNP, the largest ever gap, if I remember correctly, between us and those who came into second place, so I was really proud to stand in that election alongside John Swinney on a positive future for our country, on always standing up for Scotland."
