London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Oct 29, 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
UK and Vietnam Sign Landmark Migration Deal to Fast-Track Returns of Irregular Arrivals
UK Drug-Pricing Overhaul Essential for Life-Sciences Ambition, Says GSK Chief
Princesses Beatrice and Eugenie Temporarily Leave the UK Amid Their Parents’ Royal Fallout
UK Weighs Early End to Oil and Gas Windfall Tax as Reeves Seeks Investment Commitments
UK Retail Inflation Slows as Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since Spring
Next Raises Full-Year Profit Guidance After Strong Third-Quarter Performance
Reform UK’s Lee Anderson Admits to 'Gaming' Benefits System While Advocating Crackdown
United States and South Korea Conclude Major Trade Accord Worth $350 Billion
Hurricane Melissa Strikes Cuba After Devastating Jamaica With Record Winds
Vice President Vance to Headline Turning Point USA Campus Event at Ole Miss
U.S. Targets Maritime Narco-Routes While Border Pressure to Mexico Remains Limited
Bill Gates at 70: “I Have a Real Fear of Artificial Intelligence – and Also Regret”
Elon Musk Unveils Grokipedia: An AI-Driven Alternative to Wikipedia
Saudi Arabia Unveils Vision for First-Ever "Sky Stadium" Suspended Over Desert Floor
Amazon Announces 14 000 Corporate Job Cuts as AI Investment Accelerates
UK Shop Prices Fall for First Time Since March, Food Leads the Decline
London Stock Exchange Group ADR (LNSTY) Earns Zacks Rank #1 Upgrade on Rising Earnings Outlook
Soap legend Tony Adams, long-time star of Crossroads, dies at 84
Rachel Reeves Signals Tax Increases Ahead of November Budget Amid £20-50 Billion Fiscal Gap
NatWest Past Gains of 314% Spotlight Opportunity — But Some Key Risks Remain
UK Launches ‘Golden Age’ of Nuclear with £38 Billion Sizewell C Approval
UK Announces £1.08 Billion Budget for Offshore Wind Auction to Boost 2030 Capacity
UK Seeks Steel Alliance with EU and US to Counter China’s Over-Capacity
UK Struggles to Balance China as Both Strategic Threat and Valued Trading Partner
Argentina’s Markets Surge as Milei’s Party Secures Major Win
British Journalist Sami Hamdi Detained by U.S. Authorities After Visa Revocation Amid Israel-Gaza Commentary
King Charles Unveils UK’s First LGBT+ Armed Forces Memorial at National Memorial Arboretum
At ninety-two and re-elected: Paul Biya secures eighth term in Cameroon amid unrest
Racist Incidents Against UK Nurses Surge by 55%
UK Chancellor Rachel Reeves Cites Shared Concerns With Trump Administration as Foundation for Early US-UK Trade Deal
Essentra plc: A Closer Look at a UK ‘Penny Stock’ Opportunity Amid Market Weakness
U.S. and China Near Deal to Avert Rare-Earth Export Controls Ahead of Trump-Xi Summit
Justin time: Justin Herbert Shields Madison Beer with Impressive Reflex at Lakers Game
Russia’s President Putin Declares Burevestnik Nuclear Cruise Missile Ready for Deployment
Giuffre’s Memoir Alleges Maxwell Claimed Sexual Act with Clooney
House Republicans Move to Strip NYC Mayoral Front-Runner Zohran Mamdani of U.S. Citizenship
Record-High Spoiled Ballots Signal Voter Discontent in Ireland’s 2025 Presidential Election
Philippines’ Taal Volcano Erupts Overnight with 2.4 km Ash Plume
Albania’s Virtual AI 'Minister' Diella Set to 'Birth' Eighty-Three Digital Assistants for MPs
Tesla Unveils Vision for Optimus V3 as ‘Biggest Product of All Time’, Including Surgical Capabilities
Francis Ford Coppola Auctions Luxury Watches After Self-Financed Film Flop
Convicted Sex Offender Mistakenly Freed by UK Prison Service Arrested in London
United States and China Begin Constructive Trade Negotiations Ahead of Trump–Xi Summit
U.S. Treasury Sanctions Colombia’s President Gustavo Petro over Drug-Trafficking Allegations
Miss USA Crowns Nebraska’s Audrey Eckert Amid Leadership Overhaul
‘I Am Not Done’: Kamala Harris Signals Possible 2028 White House Run
NBA Faces Integrity Crisis After Mass Arrests in Gambling Scandal
Swift Heist at the Louvre Sees Eight French Crown Jewels Stolen in Under Seven Minutes
U.S. Halts Trade Talks with Canada After Ontario Ad Using Reagan Voice Triggers Diplomatic Fallout
Microsoft AI CEO: ‘We’re making an AI that you can trust your kids to use’ — but can Microsoft rebuild its own trust before fixing the industry’s?
×