Scotsman Bulletin Tuesday 21 November
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin
00:10 for Tuesday, the 21st of November.
00:13 My name's Dale Miller, I'm Head of News at the Scotsman
00:16 and I'm joined by our Deputy Political Editor,
00:19 Connor Matchett, who's coming to us
00:21 from the bowels of Hollywood.
00:23 We're gonna talk about the front page,
00:25 Scotsman's personal.
00:27 And we land on sewage, some new figures actually damning
00:31 new report that sewage is spewed into rivers and seas
00:35 in Scotland 60,000 times in the past five years.
00:39 But the actual devil in the detail is that the monitoring
00:42 is so low around potential discharge sites
00:46 that actually the true figure could be 10 times more
00:49 than this.
00:50 It's been a big issue down in England.
00:52 It hasn't been covered extensively,
00:55 I don't think in Scotland yet,
00:57 but I think this is something
00:59 that people genuinely care about.
01:01 And that's why we've got on the front page today,
01:04 the Scottish Liberal Democrats describe
01:06 the figures as shocking.
01:07 And Alex Cole-Hamilton, the party leader,
01:11 said that monitoring levels were hit.
01:13 It's really a big issue.
01:16 And we also had Boris Johnson,
01:18 the latest evidence of him and in and around
01:23 his leadership during the COVID campaign
01:25 on the front as well.
01:26 Professor Chris Whitty will be giving evidence today.
01:30 That will be one to watch, just his insight.
01:34 Trying to manage Boris Johnson and the rest of the
01:37 endemic UK government level.
01:39 Connor, I appreciate you joining us.
01:41 One of the big stories in recent days has been Gaza,
01:44 has been the Steeves fire.
01:46 It started a few weeks ago.
01:48 It sort of hit a peak with the vote in the commons
01:51 last week on Wednesday,
01:53 when we had several shadow cabinet members resign,
01:56 including Jess Phillips.
01:57 And now it comes to Holyrood today.
01:59 Can you talk us through why this debate's happening?
02:02 - Yeah, so obviously this is,
02:04 this has been moved by the Scottish government.
02:07 They'll lead a debate later today in Holyrood
02:10 on basically calling for an immediate ceasefire
02:13 in the region.
02:15 That is something that Humza Yousaf,
02:18 as first minister has been very strong on
02:20 from the early days of conflict in the Middle East.
02:23 You know, he obviously had his mother-in-law
02:26 and father-in-law stuck in Gaza for many weeks
02:29 until they eventually managed to get out relatively recently.
02:34 It's a very personal issue for him in a way
02:37 that it hasn't been for other politicians in the UK.
02:42 And it makes sense therefore that Scottish government
02:44 would seek to get political points for this.
02:48 We saw last week, as you mentioned,
02:49 the SNP made great hay, frankly,
02:53 over submitting a motion calling for immediate ceasefire
02:57 to the King's speech.
02:59 And that resulted in 56 MPs in Labour
03:02 rebelling against Sikir Starmer.
03:05 And obviously, as you mentioned,
03:06 plenty of shadow cabinet resignations as well.
03:10 Obviously in Scotland, the hope is slightly different.
03:13 The hope from today's debate is to drive a wedge
03:19 between Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader
03:21 who backs a ceasefire, and Sikir Starmer,
03:24 who just doesn't want to use that word.
03:26 It's worth noting that a few weeks ago,
03:29 Anas Sarwar spent an entire day talking to reporters
03:33 and refusing to use the word ceasefire,
03:35 only to come out the next day in the video message and do so.
03:39 So the politics at play here is fundamentally
03:41 about who runs Scottish Labour,
03:43 that what the SNP are trying to get across to people.
03:46 By bringing this, Scottish Labour themselves are furious
03:49 at the SNP for playing politics,
03:51 as you probably would expect.
03:52 And I think the reality of the situation
03:55 is that the Scottish government motion will pass,
03:58 probably amended, with the Scottish Labour addition,
04:02 and will have cross-party backing,
04:04 as reported in the Scotsman on Monday,
04:07 for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza.
04:09 But the political ramifications are effectively,
04:13 is Anas Sarwar in charge of his party,
04:15 or does he take his orders from Sikir Starmer?
04:17 - Connor, it's obviously been a political debate.
04:21 You've highlighted that.
04:22 Do you think this issue has resonated with voters?
04:25 Do you think the SNP, on the one hand,
04:27 have got traction out of putting Gaza
04:29 and the ceasefire forward,
04:31 as well as Hamza Yousaf in particular?
04:33 And do you think Labour have lost any ground
04:36 because they haven't been able to nail this on?
04:39 - I think we have to look at this from two different sides.
04:43 Fundamentally, Sikir Starmer wants to be
04:46 the next UK prime minister.
04:47 He wants to be in government.
04:49 So he wants to project a serious Labour party
04:53 going into the next election,
04:55 one that respects the position of the UK government
04:58 on foreign policy,
04:59 and one that wants a serious foreign policy going forward.
05:03 And I think that's why his stance is what it is.
05:05 He wants to ally himself with the US in particular,
05:09 to not spook the horses diplomatically across the world
05:13 by going too far too soon on the ceasefire demand.
05:17 And I think that's why he's doing that.
05:19 I think the truth of the matter in Scotland
05:21 is slightly different.
05:22 I think you could tell Anas Sarwar
05:25 was under massive pressure a few weeks ago
05:28 to come out and demand a ceasefire.
05:30 I think this is much more about,
05:32 particularly the Muslim community,
05:34 which you have to remember,
05:35 both Hamza Yousaf and Anas Sarwar
05:37 have a strong Muslim backing in Glasgow in particular.
05:41 They're very close to the Muslim communities,
05:42 as you would expect.
05:44 And I think that a lot of the Muslim community in Glasgow,
05:47 from what I've been told,
05:48 found Anas Sarwar's failure to call for a ceasefire
05:51 at the doors quite disappointing.
05:53 And I think that's why he is finding it quite difficult
05:56 personally to deal with all of this,
05:58 is that he's coming under pressure
06:00 from two different sides.
06:01 So this stuff does matter.
06:03 I think that the truth of the matter
06:05 is it probably matters to a minority of voters in Scotland.
06:08 And I think the SNP view it
06:10 as a positive double-edged sword, if you like.
06:13 You can have Hamza Yousaf gaining a positive reputation
06:18 by being so ahead of the curve on this,
06:21 and particularly given the emotional story
06:24 about his family,
06:26 and also it can undermine Labour in the central belt,
06:29 which is where the next general election is gonna be fought.
06:33 A lot of the central board seats
06:34 coming up at the general election
06:36 are a matter of a few hundred, maximum maybe 2,000 votes
06:40 in terms of the swing needed for Labour
06:43 to take it off the SNP at the next election.
06:45 If those are Muslim votes,
06:47 or if those are particularly left-wing votes
06:50 who maybe were going with Labour,
06:52 but might now go with the SNP following Gaza,
06:54 it's worth the SNP making hay.
06:57 Whether or not that makes a big difference nationally,
07:00 I think is really up for debate.
07:01 I'm not convinced that this is gonna turn the tide
07:04 for Hamza Yousaf overall,
07:06 and it's certainly not gonna mean
07:08 that they're gonna race back up
07:10 to where they were in the Nicola Sturgeon during COVID,
07:13 and suddenly have 50% of the vote again.
07:15 I think those days are coming to an end,
07:18 but it doesn't hurt for them to make hay
07:20 with something like this
07:21 when they are in such high straits.
07:24 - Certainly, Connor, with Matheson,
07:26 Michael Matheson's discussion extending into a third wave,
07:28 the SNP will be keen to talk about other things.
07:31 Look, thanks very much for joining us.
07:34 You can follow The Scotsman on Facebook,
07:36 Twitter, and Instagram.
07:38 There is plenty to come today with a ministerial statement
07:42 on the autumn statement
07:44 on the Scottish government's priorities,
07:45 as well as that debate around Gaza we've highlighted,
07:48 and the COVID evidence from Chris Whitty.
07:51 You can read all about that at scotsman.com.
07:54 And please go ahead and pick up a copy of the paper tomorrow
07:57 and support local journalism here in Scotland.
08:00 Thanks for joining us.
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