Nicola Sturgeon says she considered quitting politics after first term

Nicola Sturgeon considered leaving politics after just one term at Holyrood, she has said.

The former first minister was first elected as a regional MSP for Glasgow in the first term of the Scottish Parliament in 1999.

But speaking at an event in her Glasgow Southside constituency as she launched her memoir, Frankly, Ms Sturgeon said she felt she had “failed” because she was unable to win her constituency.

By that point, she said, the future first minister had lost three constituency races – in 1992 and 1997 for Westminster and the Holyrood seat she contested in 1999.

“I wasn’t particularly happy in myself in the first term of Parliament,” she said at the event as part of the Govanhill Book Festival.

“This dream I’d had about being a politician was going to be realised and yet I felt I’d failed because I hadn’t won the constituency.”

She added: “I was really conflicted for the first few years and, of course, there was lots of teething problems with the Parliament as a whole, so it wasn’t the happiest time in my political career.

“I guess I got to the end of that first session of the Scottish Parliament, not really sure whether I wanted to spend that much more time in politics.

“That obviously changed and the rest is history, but that was a moment where I could easily, I think, have taken a step out and done something different.”

Sturgeon would go on to win the seat, which was originally named Glasgow Govan, in 2007 before announcing her plans to step down as an MSP at next year’s election.