London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Liz Truss dismissal of ‘attention seeker’ Sturgeon will horrify Scots, says SNP

Tory activists cheered leadership favourite when she said first minister should be ignored

Liz Truss has been accused of tarnishing the unionist case against Scottish independence after calling Nicola Sturgeon an “attention seeker” who ought to be ignored.

John Swinney, the deputy first minister and Sturgeon’s closest political ally, said Scottish voters would be “absolutely horrified” by Truss’s “obnoxious” remarks, made during a Conservative leadership hustings in Exeter on Monday evening.

“Unionist campaigners suggest that Scotland should be at the heart of the United Kingdom. How Scotland can be expected to be at the heart of the United Kingdom when the democratically elected leader of our country is, in the view of the person most likely to be the next prime minister of the UK, somebody that should be ignored is completely and utterly unacceptable,” he told BBC Scotland.

“So, I think Liz Truss has with one silly intemperate intervention fundamentally undermined the argument that she tries to put forward that Scotland somehow can be fairly and well treated at the heart of the United Kingdom.”

Truss, the clear favourite ahead of Rishi Sunak to win the final round of the Tory leadership election, won cheers and loud applause from party activists when she said the best thing to do about Sturgeon’s demands for an independence referendum was to ignore her. “She’s an attention seeker, that’s what she is,” said Truss.

Endorsed on Monday by nine influential Tory MSPs, Truss referred to the fact she attended primary school in Paisley, south-west of Glasgow, before her parents moved to Leeds. “I feel like I’m a child of the union, that I really believe we are a family and we’re better together,” she told the hustings.


“What we need to do is show the people of Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales what we are delivering for them and making sure that all of our government policies apply right across the United Kingdom.”

Truss said that included her success in lifting whisky tariffs with the US, which made her immensely popular with Scotch whisky distillers.

“Nicola Sturgeon can carry on talking about an independence referendum. We had the referendum in 2014. It was agreed it was once in a generation. I didn’t realise a generation happened within 10 years. That doesn’t make any sense.” Asked if that was an “absolute no” to a second independence referendum, she repeated Margaret Thatcher’s often quoted response: “No, no, no.”

Some decided to respond to Truss in kind.

James Withers, the chief executive of the trade body Scotland Food and Drink and an outspoken critic of the UK government’s mishandling of post-Brexit trade arrangements with the EU and Northern Ireland, posted a riposte on Twitter, with the words “attention seekers should be ignored”:


At the latest count, eight Tory MSPs and two Scottish Tory MPs have endorsed Sunak’s candidacy. The two candidates will face each other for a Scotland-focused hustings in Perth in mid-August, two weeks before voting closes for the leadership.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
×