Nicola Sturgeon has revealed she did not know who the Secretary of State for Scotland was when she first met him.
The former First Minister told an audience at the Aye Write book festival in the Royal Concert Hall in Glasgow on Friday evening she did not know who Alister Jack was after he had been appointed by Boris Johnson.
The revelation came as part of an in conversation event with comedian Janey Godley to discuss her new novel.
Ms Sturgeon and Godley discussed one of the now infamous voiceover clips Godley became known for where she pretended to be Nicola Sturgeon when Boris Johnson attempted to usher her into Bute House in 2019 when he became Prime Minister.
READ MORE: Brian Taylor on independence: What the FM will – and will NOT – do next
Ms Sturgeon said she did not know who Mr Jack was and she first met him on the steps of Bute House.
She said: “I hadn’t met him before. I literally had no idea who he was.
“I just thought: ‘Who are you?’
“That was also the time Boris left by the back door.”
Ms Sturgeon also revealed they had “kind of kidnapped” Mr Jack on his first visit to Bute House in 2019.
She said: “In between him (Boris Johnson) arriving and him leaving, we kind of kidnapped Alister Jack.
“But that’s another story for another time,” she joked.
“I’ll leave that one for the memoir.”
Ms Sturgeon, who is facing questions over her party’s financial management while she was leader and first minister, said the event was the “best therapy” she had had in a long time.
Friday’s event ended with Godley performing a special voiceover which acknowledged the “stress” Ms Sturgeon had been under in recent weeks as a result of the police investigation into the SNP’s finances and the arrest of her husband, ex-SNP chief executive, Peter Murrell.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereLast Updated:
Report this comment Cancel