Nicola Sturgeon has announced she is to snub the upcoming Holyrood election Question Time special, instead sending the party’s deputy leader Keith Brown in her place. The SNP argues Sturgeon has been “scrutinised by the media nearly every day over the last year”. Whether she ever provided any answers is another question…

It makes cynical political sense for Sturgeon to not take part – she has the most to lose. Guido thought it’d be interesting, however, to see how the SNP reacted when both Theresa May and Boris Johnson also skipped party election debates in 2017 and 2019. After May announced her refusal to debate, Angus Robertson said it showed an “unwillingness to debate showed a lack of belief in her arguments.”:

“If the Prime Minister is so confident of her hard-Brexit, pro-austerity, anti-immigration case why won’t she debate opposition leaders?

“Can the Prime Minister tell people why she is running scared of a televised debate with Nicola Sturgeon?”

When Boris refused to debate Sturgeon in 2019, the SNP put out a Facebook graphic accusing him of “running scared” and being a “big feartie”.

Sturgeon hasn’t been having a great campaign, getting dragged into debate scraps with Douglas Ross, and appearing relatively low-energy. Today’s poll has the SNP’s constituency vote share down by 3%, and their list voting intention down to 38%. It’s amazing someone who’s hosted unchallenging live television briefings almost every day throughout the last year has suddenly become camera-shy…