Open to Challenge?

A lot of our fundamental values and principles are formed in childhood –

Yeah!

– so let’s talk a bit about yours.

I spent the first three years of my life in India. I don’t recall those years, although they were formative, but of course the legacy of India weaved its way through the next seven years in Scotland – and then we moved back [to India] when I was 10 years old and that, obviously, had a massive impact on my life.

In Scotland, I had a very stable, secure life – lots of friends, a community, a garden. I was at a Gaelic-medium school – small classes, obviously, and public transport provided. And we went from that to a place called Ludhiana in the Punjab, where we were sent to the local school, which was the polar opposite: 60 in a class, five sets for each year. A very competitive system. Children start school there at the age of three, so it was probably pitched four years ahead of the Scottish education system. Discipline was maintained through the use of physical punishment. Very strict.

My father was working in a major Christian hospital and so we were very exposed to the realities of life in India. Very exposed to absolute poverty. I remember our arrival in Delhi Airport: the sea of people, the wall of heat, and the next day we got the train to Ludhiana – my parents and us four children – and we were just surrounded by children begging, children maimed…

It must have been a big emotional hit.

A huge, huge hit.

Did you feel unsafe?

Everything was unstable. Obviously, there was comfort in the fact we were still in the family unit, but everything was different. But we threw ourselves into life there…

It upsets me enormously that we are seeing the rise of absolutism, an intolerance of difference and an inability to relate to people that are coming from a fundamentally different perspective

And then, a few months after we’d arrived, the Gujarat earthquake¹wikipedia.org/2001_Gujarat_earthquake struck, on Republic Day in 2001, injuring hundreds of thousands of people. Although we were quite far from the epicentre, we still felt it, and that, obviously, was a whole new level of instability.

My dad had a novel earthquake-alarm system: he would balance an aluminium tumbler on the edge of a bookcase so that if there was an earthquake it would clatter to the tiled floor and we’d all hear it.

We were in Ludhiana for two years and then went up to Mussoorie in the Himalayas, a beautiful, beautiful place, absolutely gorgeous. There I went to an international school for three years – again, another total culture shock, very American. We used to say ‘When we were in India’, as though we no longer were.

How did that whole experience shape you, do you think?

Being surrounded by difference was the norm, not a novelty, [and so] from a very, very young age it’s been very natural for me to accept, acknowledge and enjoy difference. People with fundamentally different outlooks on life, different religious perspectives, different languages, different cultures, different heritage.

In Ludhiana, I was living in a predominantly Sikh environment with a blend of religions, and at the age of 10 the first two questions people would ask me were: What’s your name? And what’s your religion? No animosity at all, just interest.

So, that’s one [value that was instilled in me]: accepting difference – which is why it upsets me enormously that in Scotland we are seeing the rise of absolutism, an intolerance of difference and an inability to relate to people that are coming from a fundamentally different perspective.

In your political life, you’ve sometimes been denied the opportunity to give any nuance to your own views.

I think that’s the nature of politics. I don’t think it’s unique to me or to anybody. Our whole political system pushes you into binary opposites, and into one-word answers. On Brexit, you’re either Leave or Remain; on independence, you’re Yes or No. In any vote in the parliament, you either vote for or against the substance – there’s very little room for… And in our digital age, where clips are 30–45 seconds, that doesn’t allow for an extended argument to be heard.

But my desire has always been to build bridges, to try to understand where people are coming from, with the assumption that the majority are different to me. And actually I love disagreement. I love debate. I think we’ve lost the joy in disagreement, because disagreement actually improves one’s thinking and improves one’s argument – and enriches one’s life.

Your upbringing was decidedly Christian. Would you describe yourself today as some sort of evangelical?

I resist all labels, and strongly dislike being labelled. Anybody who is brave enough to label me is revealing their own ignorance. One of the by-products of moving a lot is [that] by definition you move between and within all sorts of groupings, so you hear different arguments – different frontiers being drawn, different fights being waged – and you realise that all of them are quite naive.

You know, we went to multiple different churches in India. My dad was doing a lot of Bible teaching and therefore was being invited to lots of different areas. And when we came back to Scotland, the same – and then I moved to England [in 2008] and was involved with different groups in England.

I don’t find [that] any label withstands movement, or transplantation. So, I get very fed up.

When I was first elected, I realised just how irrelevant faith communities are. Too often they’re so busy fighting each other they’re not actually being seen to serve the greater good

Your master’s degree focused on migration…

Yeah, and identity, and the way that people retain some elements of their identity when they’re transplanted, and throw off other elements.

I have always disliked [being pigeonholed]. It became a big issue in the leadership contest and I took great umbrage at people suggesting that because I was in the Free Church²wikipedia.org/Free_Church_of_Scotland_(since_1900) I therefore must be X, Y or Z.

I can see that at present, when US evangelicals are so strongly supporting Donald Trump, you would want to distance yourself from that label.

Actually, my political world doesn’t care two hoots about any of these labels: they don’t understand these labels, they don’t know anyone with these labels, and it is such an irrelevant question.

When I was first elected, I realised just how irrelevant faith communities are. They may have something to say on various subjects, but too often they’re so busy fighting each other they’re not actually being seen to serve the greater good.

Scotland is a very, very different political environment to England – or, indeed, America. In the leadership contest, I may have been the first person that has united the Roman Catholic Church, the Church of Scotland, other Protestant denominations, some of the mosques and secularists around principles and values that should be embedded in a liberal democracy: values like freedom of speech, freedom of discourse, freedom of religious conscience, freedom of religious practice, freedom of philosophical conscience…

When did you begin to articulate for yourself what liberalism means? Were there particular people who were mentors to you?

I think that my upbringing was my first exposure to the principles and values that underpin a liberal democracy, and the greatest surprise to me has been that that isn’t common to everybody.

We grew up with constant debate and discussion around the dinner table, on everything under the sun. In fact, dinners would go on for hours, as people left and a few of us remained debating an issue on which we all fundamentally disagreed.

Give me an example.

Oh, I mean, everything from, you know, how to eradicate poverty or whether public services should be universalist in approach through to whether or not so-and-so should go to university or go and get a job. I mean, there was never agreement around the dinner table ever, on any issue. In fact, often someone would come up with a subject just so that we could all disagree. And that remains the case to this day.

My parents were – and are – very, very hospitable people, so we would often have visitors… Anyone, you know – hitchhikers! So, that kind of improved the debate. And what is common to that debate and our public debate is the freedom to speak, the freedom to be heard, the freedom to disagree – and actually indulging in disagreement.

And that went with me through to university. I studied history, and the foundation stone of historical study is trying to figure out what somebody’s bias is and then disputing with them. It’s this pursuit of truth through debate.

And then, of course, having lived in different countries, with different religious and cultural norms, again you’re just used to that.

So, that’s what primarily shaped me. I don’t think I’ve ever had any political mentors. My mentors have always been outside of politics.

I have always loved historical biographies. I’ve always admired someone like William Wilberforce.³britannica.com/biography/William-Wilberforce If there has been any influence, it’s been through reading…

Can you name three or four books that have made a big difference in your life?

Well, that’s an excellent question. One of my all-time favourite books is by Elisabeth Elliot, Through Gates of Splendor.⁴wikipedia.org/Through_Gates_of_Splendor She is normally the person I cite if anybody asks me to name a hero. Her husband was killed in South America and she voluntarily went back to serve the community that had killed him, taking with her her small child – which I just think speaks to huge levels of sacrificial love. So, that’s one.

I probably couldn’t pick out one particular [book about] William Wilberforce, but [reading about him] has made a massive difference to me. And also Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

Oh, and my all-time favourite – all-time favourite – book is Testament of Youth by Vera Brittain.⁵wikipedia.org/Testament_of_Youth

So, those four [people] are very, very different but… Maybe there’s something common to all of them, which is sacrifice for the public good. And certainly my upbringing was full of a narrative of parents who had sacrificed everything in pursuit of nothing. By ‘nothing’, I mean ‘not fame or glory or wealth’.

You decided at some point to go into politics. How did that come about?

Totally accidentally. When I left university [in 2011], I really didn’t know what to do. My brother had done some work experience with Dave Thompson, who was then [the MSP] in the seat that I currently represent, so I went to work for him for a year. I resisted the offer to stay on [longer] and went and did a master’s [degree in history] and then trained as a chartered accountant.

I then heard that he was retiring and so there was an opportunity to stand [for parliament]. Of course, there’s multiple tests to pass along the way – primarily, being nominated and selected as the candidate. That was, I don’t know, a four-month process.

Was it always going to be Holyrood rather than Westminster?

I think that as an SNP member it’s your natural destination, certainly.

Because one day…

Well, yes – and also because it’s really the devolved issues that have the biggest impact on people’s lives. It’s education, the health service… OK, I get frustrated with what’s still reserved,⁶See parliament.scot/about/devolved-and-reserved-powers in the form of economic powers and so on; but really it felt like the natural place to go.

But I certainly didn’t go into it having schemed my way there, as though this is what I was born to do. It just felt like an opportunity which I pursued and secured. And then was re-elected in 2021 with a bigger majority.⁷15,861, up from 9,043 in 2016

What made you decide to have a go at it?

I suppose, going back to childhood, there’s one massive principle that was embedded in us from a very young age: if an opportunity presents itself to you, your default is to go for it, or have a really, really good reason why you shouldn’t – because cowardice is not tolerated, a lack of self-belief is not tolerated, a lack of hard work is not tolerated. So, if the opportunity is there, you jolly well try it. And if the worst thing is to fail, then, you know, you pick yourself up!

So, that really was why I went for it. It wasn’t part of a big plan, it just came out of the blue. I hadn’t been working in that environment for years prior in order to make it happen.

And, obviously, seeking advice, seeking counsel, phoning a lot of people: Should I go for it?

I’m not an inherently ambitious person. I just believe in walking through doorways, not boycotting opportunities, and I believe in never quitting or being a coward

Did anyone in particular give you a push?

My dad was key to that. My family were really supportive, and he was hugely, hugely supportive. He is a wonderful dad – I’m a big fan of him! – and he was right beside me the whole way. In fact, I still bump into people who I’ve never met before who ask after my dad. I ask how they know him and they say: Well, during the selection contest, he phoned me up to ask me to vote for his daughter.

Were your family all Scottish nationalists?

Yes. I come from a very staunch SNP family, who have been involved with the SNP and the independence movement for decades. So, for me there was never any other party either.

When you ran for the leadership of the party in 2023, you said you were ‘extremely torn’ about whether to do so.⁸See heraldscotland.com/politics/. Why was that?

Well, I was seven months into maternity leave. The first few months had been very rocky, but I’d come through that and I was just really enjoying being a mum and, knowing that I’d have to go back to work at some point, I was just loving life with a little baby. And the thought of giving her up too soon felt very difficult.

The other thing was that she wasn’t prepared. Like, most people, before they go back to work they wean their baby, they make sure they’re accustomed to a new carer or a new nursery. I hadn’t gone through any of that. I was at a toddler group when the news broke that Nicola Sturgeon had resigned⁹ See theguardian.com/uk-news/. – it was completely out of the blue.

You hadn’t had any inside knowledge?

No. I had not been involved with politics at all. You know, I’d taken a definitive break. I was occasionally touching base with my constituency office, but apart from that I was out of it completely, emphatically out of it, and very happy to be so.

Also, you need time to prepare a campaign. You need time to prepare a team, a policy platform, a manifesto, a personal pitch. And the SNP announced a very truncated timetable.

So, there was giving up the baby, there was getting back into [politics], there was – just getting your head on. The first interview I did, which actually went really well, was quite a shock to the system: remembering how to speak, how to answer questions. I’d been doing baby talk for six months – and I’d found it very refreshing.

So, those were the reasons. And also – you may not believe me, but I do have people in my world that can vouch for this – I’m not actually an inherently ambitious person. I [just] believe in walking through doorways, not boycotting opportunities, and I believe in never quitting or being a coward.

You’ve given all the reasons that pulled you one way. If you were ‘extremely torn’, that suggests quite a strong pull in the other direction.

A genuine sense of duty – and (if I unpack that a little bit) a sense of duty that drove me personally which was actually linked to the baby, again, and the sense that I had a vested interest in her growing up in a country that was fairer, happier, more prosperous, [that] offered a brilliant education system, where she could access health care, all the rest of it.

I have a great weakness in looking to myself and I often think I need to hold on to myself – and I can’t. ‘Look to the Infinite when you feel finite,’ I think, is the…

I felt that it wasn’t enough to just wish for these things: if an opportunity arises to try and deliver them, you have to have a jolly good reason as to why you won’t.

Secondly, a clarity of personal vision for what I wanted to achieve, as I set out in the leadership contest: a strong economy underpinning excellent public services that eradicate poverty. So, a really, really strong vision.

And then, thirdly, I don’t think it’s a matter of pride to believe I have gifts and skills that would lend themselves to the job.

There’s a big difference between being ambitious, and driven by self-interest, and having a good, strong sense of your own value.

Yeah.

Which maybe became apparent when, having lost the leadership contest, you were offered a more junior post than your previous one.¹⁰See dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/.

Which I didn’t decline because it was demotion, by the way; I declined it because it would have been impossible to stick to positions on the rural economy I’d taken during the contest and do that role, because – no offence, but it’s one of the roles that is most [affected] by the Bute House Agreement,¹¹wikipedia.org/Bute_House_Agreement which I believed my constituents would have struggled with. And, ultimately, my constituents are my final boss.

I want to end with the question we put to the Conservative MP Steve Baker,¹²highprofiles.info/interview/steve-baker who, like you, is a person of faith.

You believe, I am sure, that there will come a day when Christ says to you: ‘Well done, good and faithful servant!’¹³See Matthew 25:14–28. What do you think he will have in mind?

Oh, that is such a beautiful question! Wow! That’s such a self-affirming question. You know, I’m a massive self-critic.

I think that he will say ‘Well done!’ for holding on to him when I had nothing else to hold on to. He will say ‘Well done!’ for accepting the offer he makes to hold me in the palm of his hand when I feel like I’m in free fall and can’t hold on to myself, never mind anything else.

I have a great weakness in looking to myself and I often think I need to hold on to myself – and I can’t. ‘Look to the Infinite when you feel finite,’ I think, is the…

That’s a great line to end on.