{"id":345880,"date":"2025-08-15T06:44:10","date_gmt":"2025-08-15T06:44:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/345880\/"},"modified":"2025-08-15T06:44:10","modified_gmt":"2025-08-15T06:44:10","slug":"sturgeon-summerhall-wrong-to-ban-forbes-over-herald-unspun-live","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/345880\/","title":{"rendered":"Sturgeon: ‘Summerhall wrong to ban Forbes over Herald Unspun Live’"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n It comes amid a row over the Summerhall venue\u2019s decision not to have Ms Forbes back at any future events following\u00a0The Herald<\/a>‘s Unspun Live fringe event.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\n The venue has suggested that John Swinney<\/a>\u2019s deputy posed a safety and wellbeing risk to its staff over her views on trans rights.\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Forbes is a devout Christian and a member of the socially conservative Free Church of Scotland.\n<\/p>\n

\n She was criticised during her SNP leadership battle for her stance on gay marriage, abortion and trans rights.\n<\/p>\n

\n \"FormerFormer first minister Nicola Sturgeon at the launch of her memoir ‘Frankly’, at Edinburgh International Book Festival. (Image: Jane Barlow\/PA Wire) Ms Sturgeon, who appointed Ms Forbes as finance secretary while she was first minister, was asked whether she agreed with Summerhall\u2019s decision.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI don\u2019t agree with cancel culture and I don\u2019t agree with that,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

\n She added that she took no responsibility for the venue\u2019s decision.\n<\/p>\n

\n Summerhall, which has received more \u00a3600,000 in government funding, was the venue for\u00a0Herald Unspun live events with Mr Swinney and Scottish Labour<\/a> leader Anas Sarwar<\/a>, the latter of whom has U-turned over his stance on gender self-ID.\n<\/p>\n

\n READ MORE:<\/strong>\n<\/p>\n

\n Ms Forbes expressed disappointment at the venue and said she \u201cfervently\u201d believes in freedom of speech.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cAny effort to cancel people, especially politicians, undermines democracy,\u201d she said.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cMany people attended the Herald event and it is important that we could freely discuss and debate matters in a respectful manner.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cI respect and acknowledge the fact that, in a liberal democracy, there are people who will agree with me and others who will disagree with me.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cThat is all the more reason to create events where the audience and journalists can question politicians openly, as the Herald did.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n \"KateKate Forbes is interviewed by Andrew Learmonth at The Herald’s Unspun Live event (Image: GordonTerris\/Herald&Times) The Herald’s Political Editor Andrew Learmonth has explained what went on behind the scenes – and our newspaper’s determination not to be derailed by the row.<\/strong><\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n He writes: “The first we heard there might be an issue was last Tuesday \u2014 two days before she was due to appear on stage and be interviewed by me.\n<\/p>\n

\n “At a meeting, we were told some artists had complained to management. There were fears about \u201chate speech\u201d and anxiety around the sort of audience Ms Forbes might attract to the venue. They said they were worried about the questions she might asked by that audience.\n<\/p>\n

\n “As far as we were concerned, this was our event \u2014 and we were determined to run it the same way we would any other.”\n<\/p>\n

\n In a statement, the Summerhall venue said: \u201cThis event was booked as a series of long-form interviews prior to the guest list being confirmed.\n<\/p>\n

\n \u201cSummerhall Arts primary concern is the safety and wellbeing of the artists and performers we work with, and going forward we will be developing robust, proactive inclusion and wellbeing policies that would prevent this oversight in our bookings process happening again.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

\n Shona Robison<\/a>, who succeeded Ms Forbes as Finance Secretary, also defended her colleague, calling Summerhall\u2019s decision \u201cunwise and unnecessary\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It comes amid a row over the Summerhall venue\u2019s decision not to have Ms Forbes back at any…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":345881,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8816],"tags":[748,1102,4884,712,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-345880","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-edinburgh","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-edinburgh","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-scotland","12":"tag-uk","13":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115031432450533507","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345880","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=345880"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/345880\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/345881"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=345880"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=345880"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=345880"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}