NICOLA Sturgeon has said she is the only politician offering “serious leadership” for Scotland in the Holyrood election.

The First Minister was quizzed on her government’s record by the BBC’s Martin Geissler on the Sunday Show yesterday morning, and said that other party leaders are simply “vying for second place”.

It comes as Sturgeon insisted during the interview that she would serve out the full five-year parliamentary term if she is re-elected.

Asked how crucial the election on May 6 is for Scotland, Sturgeon said: “In every election a politician like me will tell you it’s the most important election ever, but it’s probably true this time because of the seriousness of the times that we’re living through. The country needs a serious First Minister with a serious plan for government, and it’s only the SNP that has put that forward in this election.

“First of all we need a First Minister that’s back at work, taking the decisions that decide whether we’re reaching the milestones to come out of lockdown, then implementing the policies that are about recovering our economy, our National Health Service, our society more generally and making sure we’re not slipping back to the way things were pre-pandemic but trying to resolve the big issues that the Covid pandemic really has shone a light on.”

She added: “We’re not saying there aren’t big challenges to address in this country, but we are the only party doing the work and putting forward the plans to actually do that.

“And that’s the choice people have on Thursday, do you want to vote for parties that are vying for second place, openly saying they have got no plan for government, or do you want a serious first minister, an experienced first minister, that is leading a government that is serious about tackling the challenges.”

Geissler went on to probe the FM on the SNP record, and asked about promises made during previous election campaigns and said the SNP had a history of “making promises and not delivering them”.

Sturgeon hit back and challenged the claim, centred around early cancer diagnostic centres, of which Geissler said six were promised previously and had not been build.

Sturgeon said: “You have to build these things, they are on stream, they are under way and they will be delivered. We had a period over the last year where construction wasn’t able to operate because of the Covid pandemic, there’s all sorts of things that have been delayed because of that. The fast track cancer diagnosis centres, three of them will be open by the end of this month, by the end of May, as a down payment on the one we intend to have in every health board area over the term of parliament.

“The SNP government’s approach is more progressive than we see anywhere else in the UK. I don’t claim Martin, and I’ll never claim, it’s not the kind of politician I am, that our record is perfect or unflawed or that there’s not more we have to do, but I’m the only candidate for First Minister that is not just talking about recovery in this election but has put forward a serious plan to bring about that recovery.

“The others that you rightly say are vying for second place, and that’s the choice people have to make do you want a serious government or game playing?”

Sturgeon was also forced to defend her record on education and said there was more work to be done.

She said: “I don’t regret being ambitious for our education system. We’ve not yet done as much as I want us to do. If you take our manifesto in 2016 we said we wanted to make progress in closing the attainment gap, we have done that, not enough progress, the job is not done, but if you look at National 5 we’ve reduced the attainment gap by a third, at level six which is highers we’ve reduced the attainment gap by a fifth.

“We’ve almost doubled the provision of early years education, key in reducing the attainment gap and record numbers of young people from deprived communities in our country right now are going to university.”

Sturgeon said tackling the attainment gap requires tackling child poverty, with the SNP aiming to double the Scottish Child Payment.