Sturgeon’s Net Zero Disaster
Eighteen years in power left Scotland with power grid failures, monoculture forests, and taxpayers funding energy that never reached homes. The technocrat image was always an illusion.
The Soundbite Sage: How Nicola Sturgeon's Policy Failures Open the Door for Reform
Nicola Sturgeon's recent appearance on The Rest is Politics delivered her trademark blend of political theater and hollow rhetoric. "Scotland doesn't want Farage," she declared, "it wants independence." Yet this confident assertion from the former First Minister reveals more about her own limitations than Scotland's political appetite.
The numbers tell a different story than Sturgeon's certainty suggests. While Nigel Farage indeed polls poorly in Scotland with a 67% unfavourable rating according to YouGov's August survey, Sturgeon herself sat at 59% unfavorability as of March this year. If popularity is the metric, Scotland's erstwhile First Minister is hardly positioned as the voice of Scottish sentiment.
The Parlour-Room Philosopher
This disconnect between perception and reality captures the essence of Nicola Sturgeon's political career. She represents the archetype of the cocktail party intellectual—capable of holding court socially and delivering memorable soundbites, but chronically lacking in the rigorous policy implementation that defines genuine political leadership.
For years, Scotland's commentariat framed Sturgeon as a tireless technocrat whose only flaw was obsessive micromanaging. Yet a true technocrat possesses deep expertise in their domain—hardly an apt description of the former First Minister. Her memoir, ironically titled Frankly, offers little insight into policy mechanics or legislative strategy. Instead, it delivers ego-messaging and emotional appeals—more pathos than logos, resembling the work of someone about as effective at accomplishing outcomes as an air traffic controller for paper airplanes.
The Net-Zero Fiasco
Sturgeon's net-zero obsession provides the clearest illustration of her mile-wide, inch-deep approach to governance. Recent Financial Times reporting reveals that Scottish wind farms were paid public money to not produce 37 per cent of their planned output during the first half of this year. The great sages of net zero—Ed Miliband and Nicola Sturgeon—apparently failed to appreciate that electricity cannot be conjured where needed or magically transmitted across inadequate infrastructure.
The situation grows more absurd in Northern Scotland, which bears the highest proportion of curtailed wind farms. As one industry insider explains, "chronic under-investment in the grid over the past few decades" created this costly farce. Scottish taxpayers literally pay wind farm operators to switch off turbines because the energy cannot be transmitted from northern Scotland to population centres in the south where it's actually needed.
Consider this: Sturgeon served 18 years as either Deputy First Minister or First Minister. A masterful technocrat with deep policy knowledge would have identified and addressed such fundamental infrastructure gaps. Yet she either failed to notice, didn't care, or couldn't grasp these farcical realities—the hallmark of a parlour-room philosopher rather than a serious policymaker.
Environmental Contradictions
The contradictions multiply when examining Sturgeon's record on what she terms "reforestation" and "carbon capture." In Langholm, a former mill town at the heart of Scotland's textile heritage, campaigners argue that rapidly expanding spruce plantations—driven by Scottish Government net-zero priorities—are displacing farmers and native tree species.
"Rural communities have been totally pillaged," says 75-year-old local resident Hyslop, watching shops and services close as "miles of monotonous spruce trees are emptying the sheep and cattle from our hills." Under forestry standards, single species should be restricted to 65% of planting area, yet Langholm plans threaten to push Sitka spruce concentration to 65.4%.
This mono-variety reforestation, with its inherent ecological risks, has become a defining feature of Scottish forestry under SNP rule. Conifers, including fast-growing Sitka spruce, now comprise over 70% of Scottish forests—a legacy directly attributable to Sturgeon's approach of prioritizing headline-grabbing targets over nuanced environmental stewardship.
Farage's Opening
The policy incoherence creates a perfect storm: Scotland pays renewable energy producers to not produce electricity while expanding ecologically questionable monoculture forests at local communities' expense, all while blocking new oil and gas exploration during a cost-of-living crisis. This isn't merely an illustration of Sturgeon's failure to live up to her technocratic reputation—it's a political fracture offering Nigel Farage and Reform UK an opening in Scotland.
Never one to miss opportunity, Farage held a press conference in Scotland today, delivering his "Drill, Scotland, Drill" message while condemning Sturgeon's net-zero obsessions. "Oil and gas and net zero—this is almost the next Brexit," he declared, calling for maximizing fossil fuel production in the North Sea basin.
The Scattershot Legacy
Sturgeon's tenure reveals the dangers of elevating style over substance in political leadership. Her ability to craft memorable phrases and project confidence masked a fundamental inability to translate vision into effective policy implementation. Like a Wiki-deep thinker skimming surface knowledge, she collected the vocabulary of technocratic governance without mastering its practice.
The irony is profound: in positioning herself as Scotland's voice against populism, Sturgeon's policy failures may have created the very conditions that make populist alternatives attractive. Her soundbite sagery, impressive in the moment but hollow upon examination, represents precisely the kind of political performance that drives voters toward leaders promising more authentic alternatives.
Scotland may indeed not want Farage—but Sturgeon's record suggests it deserves better than the intellectual magpie approach that defined her leadership. The question now is whether Scottish politics can move beyond the parlour-room philosophy that promised transformation but delivered contradiction.
Dean M Thomson is currently a lecturer with Beijing Normal - Baptist University (BNBU), formerly known as Beijing Normal - Hong Kong Baptist University, United International College (UIC).
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No I think you have misunderstood. If we can't use it, for whatever reason, then it is oversupply. There is a similar and more expensive issue in England. To be clear, I agree that the grid needs upgrading, but I understand that is a problem for Scottish power and that upgrades are underway.
I think you answered my question. We could turn off Nuclear, but we don't as it would cost more to switch it off than it does to switch off wind. To be clear we need oversupply for when usage spikes. So in fact, oversupply in wind is cheaper than oversupply in Nuclear. Which renders Deans point irrelevant.