A NEW anthology of Nicola Sturgeon’s speeches is a “feminist document from a feminist political leader”, according to its editor.

Robert Davidson said Women Hold Up Half The Sky, which is published tomorrow, “signals the direction the new Scotland is going” as it heads ­towards independence.

Published by Sandstone Press, ­independently of the Scottish ­Government and the SNP, the book covers the First Minister’s speeches from when she was elected in 2014 to when the country left the EU in ­February 2020.

Davidson told The National: “I think politically focused people will enjoy [the book] but that it will also reach socially aware people. It’s going to be very quickly seen as a progressive and agenda-setting document.”

During the SNP’s manifesto launch last month, Sturgeon said she is a “feminist to her fingertips” and that her party’s Scotland’s ­Future ­document features policies that ­cater for women, such as three days of paid leave after a miscarriage (a policy recently adopted in New Zealand) and reducing the waiting times for diagnostic tests for endometriosis from eight years to 12 months. The NHS, which has a significantly higher number of female employees than male, will be given a £2.5 billion boost.

The book takes its title from ­Chinese communist leader Mao ­Zedong’s famous proclamation that “women hold up half the sky”, which the First Minister quoted in a speech given to an audience of women from Chinese media, business and ­government in Beijing in 2015.

Davidson (below) said: “The saying is ­usually ascribed to Mao, whom we know as one of the 20th century’s great tyrants and mass murderers … but I think he stole it from the people of China. We adopted it because it is beautiful, appropriate and true and, besides, why should the devil have all the best tunes? Let’s give it back to the people with an ideas book that is international in its scope, a powerful feminist document from an experienced world leader.”

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Davidson has chosen 40 speeches, whittled down from 120, on a range of topics including diversity, ­gender, human rights, poverty, climate change and the media, given in cities all over the world including ­Washington DC, Reykjavík, London, and Brussels. In Dublin she was the first leader of a foreign government to address the senate.

The speeches include the First Minister’s vision for the Highlands and Islands, given on the Isle of Skye, the Cardinal Thomas Winning Lecture at Glasgow University on Catholic education in Scotland, and her speech at the European Policy Centre in Brussels on Scotland’s future after Brexit.

Davidson said that seeing the speeches in essay form in ­chronological order reveals a “sort of unconscious self-portrait not only of Nicola Sturgeon but, because of the position she is in, of the country’s present preoccupations”.

“Watching accomplished speakers like Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, JFK and, from the opposite side of the spectrum, Ronald Reagan, you get the visuals and the tone of voice, but with the printed words alone all of that goes. Without those distractions, the portrait appears,” he added.

DISCUSSING modern female leaders who are of a “progressive persuasion” like Sturgeon, Davidson cited “Jacinda Ardern and, possibly the most powerful woman in the world, Kamala Harris. Put them together with women like Malala Yousafzai and Greta Thunberg and you can see a new kind of world leadership emerging”.

“They are different from female leaders I remember, such as Golda Meir and Indira Gandhi, and for that matter Margaret Thatcher, none of whom could be described as ­feminist.”

Davidson also referenced ­Germany’s Angela Merkel, European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen, Ireland’s Mary Robinson, and the prime minister of Iceland, ­Katrín Jakobsdottir, as examples of ­successful feminist leaders on the world stage.

“These are all progressive characters, focused on gender equality, who are changing, and have changed, the political world for the better. At UK level we get Boris Johnson. When he goes, as he certainly will, who will take his place? No one progressive, that’s for sure.”

Several of the speeches show Sturgeon’s political insight. She spoke about the importance of truth at a Strathclyde University lecture in 2017, long before seminal books on the issue – Michiko Kakutani’s The Death Of Truth and Alan Rusbridger’s Breaking News – were published.

In a speech given to the Resolution Foundation in 2016 on the benefits of EU membership for work and ­living standards, she predicted Scotland could be taken out of the EU against its will.

Davidson said this kind of ­foresight is rare for a politician, adding: ­“Nicola Sturgeon is more far-sighted than most. Politics with its four to five-year cycle means leaders have to look more at their feet than the ­horizon but she manages to do both, as this book shows.”

BUT he warns of the dangers of ­putting politicians on a pedestal, saying: “I’m an admirer of hers but would not describe myself as a ‘fan’. I’ve been voting for a long time and have known a few politicians.

“Don’t be a fan of any politician, don’t put them on pedestals or expect them to conform to what your idea of them is. They must be allowed to change with circumstances because they are human. Sometimes all too human. Also, there must be more to a politician than an image, a politician has to have substance.”

Davidson said the speeches show Sturgeon’s “increasing confidence” from 2014. He said she “appeared in office virtually complete” due to her long service as an MSP and deputy first minister, but added: “From that point there was a quickening development of her thinking and an increased commitment to the progressive ideas that are now reshaping politics; what you might think of as the new equalities: gender, sexuality, race, and the new social contract that must and will follow.

“What I think we’re seeing is that, economically, centrism has prevailed, and the traditional oppositions of left and right are being left behind.”

The Top 10

1. “I hope that my election as First Minister sends a strong, positive message to girls and young women. There should be no limit to your ambition or what you can achieve. If you are good enough and work hard enough, no glass ceiling should stop you achieving your dreams.”
‘My pledge today is simple and heartfelt’ – given to the Scottish Parliament, November 19, 2014

2. “We are likely to make progress in the right direction by aiming high than we ever will by being overcautious.”
‘We need men to show leadership’ – given at launch of 50:50 by 2020 at Edinburgh Napier University, June 25, 2015

3. “Women should not just be supporting the sky. We should be reaching for it.” ‘Women hold up half the sky’ – given to the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries in Beijing, July 27, 2015

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4. “We must make a reality of the adage that education is the great leveller in life.”
‘60,000 excited little minds’ – given at the Wester Hailes Education Centre while launching the Scottish Government’s Attainment Challenge on September 18, 2015

5. “When the world is looking for leadership, courage, and a simple display of common humanity, we will be found standing eagerly at the front of the queue, not cowering timidly at the back.”
‘Our response will be judged by history’ – given to a humanitarian summit after a photograph of three-year-old refugee Alan Shenu was photographed lying lifeless on a Turkish beach, September 4, 2015

6. “The absence of any leadership or the lack of any advance planning, either from the politicians who had proposed the referendum or those who had campaigned for a Leave vote, must count as one of the most shameful abdications of responsibility in modern political history.”
‘Reflections on the EU referendum’ – given to the Institute for Public Policy Research in Edinburgh on July 25, 2016

7. “Scotland’s modern identity, much like the US, is an inclusive one. We take the approach that if you want to be Scottish you can be.”
‘The underpinning principle of the state’ – given to the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies at Stanford University in California, April 4, 2017

8. “Any nation that underuses the potential of women, that underuses half its population, is needlessly impoverishing itself.”
‘Women in conflict resolution’ – given to the United Nations in New York, April 5, 2017

9. “Everyone in Scotland knows, although it is a point that is usually lost, that there was often very little difference between a No voter tempered by a new path, but with anxieties about the future, and a Yes voter who felt solidarity with the rest of the UK but felt that we would be better taking decisions for ourselves.”
‘The importance of truth’ – given to the Political Studies Association at Strathclyde University in Glasgow, April 12, 2017

10. “I look forward to the day when Scotland returns to where we belong. To EU membership and a place in the council and European Parliament. As an independent nation we will embrace international co-operation, and sing of solidarity and friendship not out of sorrow but with optimism and hope for the future.”
‘A cup of kindness’ – given to the European Policy Centre in Brussels, February 10, 2020