Theme: Parties & Elections | Content Type: Journal article

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Diary of an SNP First Minister: A Chronopolitics of Proximity and Priorities

Hannah Graham

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Zoran Borojevic

| 1 min read

This article provides a content analysis of Nicola Sturgeon's first ministerial diaries in the final two years of her leadership (April 2021–March 2023). As first minister, to whom and what did she give her time—which issues and interest groups had access? Which didn't? Or, who and what may be missing? An audience with a national leader can be indicative of priorities and potential for influence—as can its absence. The lens of chronopolitics—the politics of time—is used here to consider twenty-four months of diaries, with 681 entries. Some key social and political issues in Scotland were kept away from the FM's meetings and delegated to other ministers to oversee, whereas other issues appear to be signature priorities, including climate and the environment, economy and finance, culture, and health and Covid-19.

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Volume 96, Issue 3

Latest Journal Issue

Volume 96, Issue 3

This issue features a collection titled 'The Intellectual and Political Legacy of David Marquand', who died in April 2024, edited by Colin Crouch, Ben Jackson and Peter Sloman. In this collection, authors including Jean Seaton, Will Hutton and Hilary Wainwright consider Marquand's legacy as a great progressive thinker, his biography of Ramsay MacDonald, Labour's first prime minister, and the role of socialism for Marquand. Other articles include a commentary by Deborah Mabbett titled 'Welfare reform by numbers'; Jeremy Gilbert and Alex Williams on 'The Vices of Values: Matthew Goodwin and the Politics of Motivation'; Helen McCarthy on 'Why the WASPI has no Sting: Gender, Generation and Pension Inequalities'; and Sam Taylor Hill, Tariq Modood and John Denham on 'Multicultural Nationalism: Saving the White Working Class from Blue Labour?' A selection of book reviews feature Edmund Fawcett's review of 'Nationalism: A World History' by Eric Storm and Samuel Cohn's review of 'Controlling Contagion: Epidemics and Institutions from the Black Death to Covid' by Sheilagh Ogilvie.

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