Nicola Sturgeon accused of 'hijacking devolution' as she 'pretended to be PM of independent country'

According to the former minister of state for Scotland, problems started with her predecessor Alex Salmond and continued under Sturgeon.

"She’s a very able politician and a very effective communicator but wasn’t good at running the Scottish Government and all the areas that she should have been running," Foulkes told the Holyrood magazine.

He added that Sturgeon "pretended that she was prime minister of an independent country” and ignored issues the Scottish government and parliament had power over.

“That’s the one thing I’ve had a bee in my bonnet about," Foulkes said.

"They should be required to stick to spending the money they get, by whatever means they get it, on devolved areas.”

Sturgeon resigned in February this year before Humza Yousaf won the leadership contest to replace her in March.

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Speaking about the SNP's approach to governing, Foulkes said he was confused over how they are "doing such a bad job".

He said: "This has been their downfall in many ways.

"If I’d been a nationalist and wanted to convince sceptics that independence was a good thing, what I would have attempted to do was make devolution work really, really effectively,

"And done things in the devolved areas that were different and exciting and said, ‘Look, if we can do this in the devolved areas, how much more could we do if we’re independent?’

"It would have been difficult – there would still be arguments against it – but it would have been more difficult [to argue against independence].

"But what they did was instead just use it as a campaigning tool and ignore the devolved areas.

"And things have gone terribly wrong."