Speaking exclusively to Express.co.uk, Sandy Easdale hit out at Ms Sturgeon’s “abysmal record” in government and warned her successor would need to fix Scotland after 16 years of Sturgeon and Alex Salmond as First Minister before her.
He said: “The legacy of Sturgeon is that all too often she forgot businesses and focussed on meaningless woke issues for the soundbite value, that’s not what Scotland needed most.
“The new leader has to step in where she failed – on schools, the NHS and social services.
“A new arrival will also have to remember independent businesses, the very backbone of Scotland’s economy.”
He highlighted two-year hospital waiting lists, falling schools standards which are below those of England despite Scotland getting more money per head of population, and Scotland being the drugs death capital of Europe.
Mr Easdale said: “With public services being in crisis why was Sturgeon spending months focusing on the gender self-ID issue?”
“In her speech, she talked about her own hardships during the pandemic but she should try having to find the money to pay 3,000 staff and keep jobs and families intact.
“My brother, James, and I know what it is like to be at the coalface, to face the challenge of keeping things afloat amid historically testing conditions.
“The new leader must take lessons from what has happened and not just repeat Sturgeon’s mistakes.”
READ MORE: SNP’s rivals want Humza Yousaf elected to replace Sturgeon
