Alistair and the politics team at The Scotsman discuss the week in politics
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00:00Absolute horror show that the Conservatives are inflicted on working people in this country,
00:10on our public services, on anybody paying a mortgage. Every one of them has been punished
00:16by the incompetence of the Conservative government.
00:21That is more money for Scotland's NHS, schools and other vital public services. The fact
00:26is that this is an incompetent SNP government that is bad with taxpayers' money. So more
00:32of the same won't cut it.
00:33I tell you what, John Swinney's got some front. The man whose dirty fingerprints are all over
00:38the tram scandal, the ferry scandal, the Salmond Inquiry scandal, the named person scandal.
00:44How much has this man's mistakes cost all of us?
00:48The Steamy, a politics podcast from The Scotsman.
00:56Hello and welcome to The Steamy, The Scotsman's politics podcast. I'm Alistair Grant, The
01:06Scotsman's political editor. And to discuss all the latest in Scottish politics, I'm joined
01:11by Alexander Brown, The Scotsman's Westminster correspondent, by David Ball, The Scotsman's
01:15deputy political editor, and by Rachel Aimery, The Scotsman's political correspondent.
01:20Holyrood has been in recess this week, meaning that MSPs have been out and about in their
01:24constituencies instead of being in the Scottish Parliament. But there's still been plenty
01:29going on in the world of Scottish politics, not least a row over an alleged SNP hit list,
01:34which we'll come on to shortly.
01:36There's also been lots of chat about council tax as the Scottish government prepares to
01:40roll out yet another consultation process on reforming council tax, 18 years after the
01:46SNP came to power with a promise to scrap council tax and replace it. So we are truly
01:51living in Groundhog Day on this issue. But first, Alex, on these reports that Stephen
01:58Flynn, the SNP's Westminster leader, or allies around Stephen Flynn, the SNP's Westminster
02:03leader, have been drawing up a hit list of SNP MSPs that they want to replace with former
02:11SNP MPs. I wondered what you made of this. I mean, it's caused quite a stink in Holyrood,
02:16at least because of all of those named in the list, they're all women. It's people like
02:21Emma Roddick, Karen Adam, Jackie Dunbar. There's been kind of suggestions of misogyny here.
02:29What did you make of this?
02:31So I can only look at this really from a Westminster perspective. You are probably closer to those
02:37named than I am. But I found it very surprising. And I think Stephen Flynn and his allies found
02:46it completely infuriating. I think it's worth saying straight off the bat, they completely
02:50deny not just the existence of a hit list, but any semblance that there is this sexism
02:57or bias held by Stephen Flynn of any kind. They point to the fact that he had lots of
03:05female colleagues who've never complained. I've spoken to several of them who are all
03:09very supportive. And I do think it's worth noting that actually, when he first came in,
03:15he did put more women in his top team. He did seek people out who maybe had been overlooked
03:20perhaps by Ian Blackford, or maybe that's how they felt. I think from their perspective,
03:25they believe it to be essentially troubled MSPs worrying about their own ambitions. Now,
03:33they wouldn't say who they think that is. I was told categorically it is not Kate Forbes.
03:36They don't believe this is coming from Kate Forbes. But they think this is a mischievous
03:40briefing coming from Hollywood, because people are worried about Stephen Flynn coming, and
03:45perhaps trying to maybe being further ahead than they are in the SNP hierarchy. And I
03:54think what's really interesting about this is that Stephen Flynn is perhaps not happy
04:01with some of the MSPs. But I don't think that's a unique view to him. I think that's a view
04:05held by many MPs and former MPs who feel like they lost their seats or struggled, not
04:11because of their own failings, but because actually, those in Holyrood haven't been pulled
04:16their way, haven't been pulling their weight even. And when you try and think, okay, what's
04:20the why are they doing this? Is it just ambition? That's one argument. Another that I've heard
04:25is actually, it's over the Ian Blackford coup. It's over this. Well, it's so long ago now
04:31that our listeners might not remember, but at the time, Ian Blackford stood down, because he
04:37decided to resign. That was narrowed out. But that was not the case. Stephen Flynn had been
04:42getting support, going behind Ian's back, and whipping people up to come and support him, who
04:47felt that the party needed to change in Westminster. And you can say that's right or wrong,
04:51but the party felt it did need a change, and made it. And that annoyed some people within the
04:56party, but not many. And the bulk of the Westminster group was happy with Flynn and
05:01supported Flynn. But one argument I've heard is, there may be a few people who were unhappy
05:06about that, allies of Blackford, who are now speaking out to try and derail Stephen Flynn's
05:11career years later, perhaps as revenge for that coup. So yeah, I mean, that's probably the
05:19Westminster perspective, but he would deny it. I've spoken to female colleagues who fully
05:24support him. And I think there is just a real sense of frustration and anger that at a time when
05:29the SNP Westminster group have done okay to raise the issues of Gaza, of WASPI, of two child
05:35benefit cap and winter fuel, and have maybe made more ground and more headlines than you would
05:39expect with their emphatically reduced numbers, that instead, we aren't necessarily talking about
05:45that now, it's SNP infighting. And I think they'd probably say, that proves the point. Stephen
05:49Flynn needs to go to Holyrood because the operation as a whole is messy, it's bitchy, they all
05:54leak and brief out each other. And that is not how a good party should run.
05:59Yeah, it's interesting. I probably should have made clear at the start that obviously, Stephen
06:02Flynn very much denies these reports, which come, were said to have come from allies of him
06:08anyway, not so much him himself. But I mean, David, the interesting thing about this is, like
06:15Alex is saying, the infighting aspect of it. I mean, John Swinney has come in as First
06:19Minister, SNP leader, he's been in place for a week while now, and his whole kind of pitch is this
06:25kind of unity platform, the stabilising the party, steadying the ship after the chaotic period under
06:30Humza Yousaf, bringing the party kind of, he would say, back to the mainstream of Scottish
06:35politics, and very much presenting this kind of calm sort of demeanour. And this is not helpful to
06:43that.
06:45No, you're right. I mean, yeah, he has kind of overseen this calm period of the SNP, which I
06:50can't remember the last time we saw, even under Nicola Sturgeon, especially towards the end, it
06:55was pretty frantic. And infighting has just been a part of the SNP, but not under Swinney's kind of
07:01leadership. So it is a huge distraction, it's the last thing they kind of need. Labour are getting a
07:06bit drawn into this, particularly at Westminster, like in the UK government, a bit of potential
07:11infighting between sort of Ed Miliband and Rachel Reeves, reportedly. So there was a lot of
07:17pressure on Labour, none on the SNP, they were kind of just sit back and watching a little bit of
07:22chaos. But now, just to get a bit involved, there's probably a bit of, it's recess, and there's not a
07:27lot going on at Holyrood as well, which is why this is kind of blown up right now. It doesn't look
07:32great for Stephen Flynn again, obviously had that quite embarrassing U-turn that he had to do over
07:37this kind of attempt to get to Holyrood before. And yeah, it's just a bit messy, isn't it? And it's
07:43kind of the last thing that both the SNP at Westminster and Holyrood need to be to be talking
07:47about.
07:49Yeah, and the background to this, Rachel, is obviously the, you know, we've had a lot of former
07:55SNP MPs lost their seats at the general election, some of them want to come to Holyrood. People like
08:00Stephen Flynn, as David was saying, there's obviously been a lot of coverage of his kind of
08:04umming and ahhing over running for Holyrood. We obviously expect him to run for Holyrood. I don't
08:08think that's a secret at all that he sees himself up here. But I mean, I suppose, will this, this is
08:17obviously coming to hit the headlines this week, but it's only going to kind of get more of a
08:21problem for them potentially as we approach the Holyrood election and people are trying to become
08:26MSPs, I guess. Could this get more message, you think?
08:30It could potentially, because as you're saying, last year at the general election, we had a whole
08:34host of experienced MPs within the SNP who wanted to keep their seat, wanted to stay in frontline
08:41politics and didn't win their seats. And so now they're left hanging, not sure what to do
08:46themselves. With it only being 18 months now until the Holyrood election, a lot of them are expected
08:52to now run again. I think one thing that's perhaps not helping Stephen Flynn's argument here that he
08:58didn't have anything to do with this is the fact that there's been two announcements of resignations
09:03this week in Holyrood. One is Audrey Nicol. Now she represents Aberdeen South and North Kincardine.
09:08That is the seat that Stephen Flynn wants. The other person is Evelyn Tweed, who represents
09:14Stirling. She was also on this supposed list. And the MP who lost the seat there for the SNP was
09:21Alan Smith, again, someone who wanted to stay, I believe. So it doesn't help that narrative that
09:26you've had two people this week announcing the resignations when they were both on this supposed
09:31list. So that's not helping the argument there. But as Alex was saying, everybody else is very
09:38much trying to make the point that there's no truth to any of this. I was actually speaking to
09:44an SNP press officer this morning who again was trying to emphasise the fact that this is not
09:49true. This has not happened. So it's not going to be helpful. And obviously we'll now be looking
09:55at the other names that are on this list and seeing what those people are going to do between now and
09:592026, because there is going to be a lot of speculation regardless of what happens now.
10:05And no matter how much the SNP and those around Stephen Flynn try and deny these claims, they're
10:11just going to keep popping up for them, unfortunately. So it's going to hamper
10:17his image regardless of what he does now at this point.
10:20Yeah, Alex, I mean, part of the claims that came out around this, I mean, I think there was a story
10:25in the national newspaper actually where they were talking about this idea that Stephen
10:31Flynn was running some kind of boys club down in Westminster. I think the phrase was this kind of
10:34boys brigade down in Westminster. And I think Kirstie Blackman, the SNP MP has come out and
10:39very much defended him. What is your perception of the kind of the Westminster group, Stephen
10:44Flynn's leadership? Because he does, you know, I don't think it's something that he's necessarily
10:48always cultivated himself, but there is this kind of image of him as a bit of a lad.
10:52I think he was voted by some magazine, the hardest man in Westminster, which feels ridiculous. But I
10:58mean, what's your perception of him as a politician and how he's kind of come in and led the group in
11:03Westminster? So I think initially he can seem quite standoffish and the way that he assumed
11:09office did not lend itself to a collegiate atmosphere. It did create a division within
11:16the Westminster group, just by virtue of he ousted Blackford and Blackford had a few people
11:21who were really close to him. Most of those incredibly close allies are no longer in
11:26parliament. So I don't think that's necessarily an issue. And they also came round, I mean,
11:31ousted Blackford to an extent because the party has to come first and they recognised that this
11:35new direction could kind of be productive. But I'm not sure that I would recognise the idea that he
11:42is a problem for his own party. I mean, they all quite like him. It's not unusual to go into
11:48strangers bar and just find the SNP MPs and their staffers all mixing and having drinks together.
11:55He's not this, I'm separate and I socialise entirely on my own. He seems to be close with
12:01his colleagues. And even off the record, you don't often hear people say anything bad about him,
12:07even when you push for it or when the SNP maybe have struggled. There's been a pretty strong
12:12defence and an insistence that actually he's he's kind of surpassed where the SNP should be
12:18and has been held back time and time again by the Holyrood group. So I wouldn't, I don't think
12:24there is any real negativity towards him in the Westminster group at all, really. And everyone
12:29I've spoken to said this is nonsense, it's pathetic. And then one of the former MP made
12:35quite a good point to me, a former female MP made the point that actually, it doesn't just
12:38damage the SNP, it kind of undermines the work that the new First Minister has done since coming
12:45in and creates this new narrative that they're chaotic, which was the whole problem. Well,
12:50just one of the big problems of Hunza's tenure, which is deeply problematic. And if I could say
12:56one more thing, if these people standing down, if we accept the premise of standing down because
13:01Stephen Flynn has a hit list, and he's chosen it, what does that possibly say about his standing in
13:07the party? I mean, the guy can't even go run in two seats. And yet the idea that, oh, actually,
13:11he's forcing people out, he's got a hit list, and he's making people stand down. That is so absurd.
13:17People hold him in Holyrood in such contempt, a select few really, really dislike him. And the
13:24idea that his influence from here can be so great that people are forced to stand down is absurd.
13:29I think someone's probably got an agenda, he's probably had a falling out with someone,
13:33they may have had an interaction that does represent what they're saying, you know,
13:36I can't speak to that. But I think the claim that he is this all-powerful person who could perhaps
13:42influence selections, he's not having in Holyrood yet. I mean, once he is,
13:46we'll see how iron that fist is. But for now, he's just a guy.
13:52And it's probably worth saying that those people who are standing down,
13:55Audrey Nicholl, for example, very much pushing back on the idea that they were somehow
13:59forced out by Stephen Flynn. I think they even are kind of offended by that idea themselves.
14:04I mean, Audrey Nicholl, a former police officer, very much making the point that she's not in the
14:07habit of doing what men ask her to do. So David, I mean, going into that Holyrood election and the
14:12kind of makeup of the SNP in the Scottish Parliament, I mean, the SNP is potentially,
14:18people like Nicola Sturgeon, the former First Minister, you know, she's not made her intentions
14:21clear about whether or not she's going to stand in 2026. But I think there is an expectation in
14:26Holyrood that she will probably stand down, despite what she'd been kind of saying in recent
14:30days. I don't think there's really anyone in Holyrood that expects her to hang about. But
14:34there's all these people are kind of announcing that they are not going to stand again. The SNP
14:38risks losing quite a lot of experience, quite a lot of these people that have been there for a
14:42number of years in Holyrood, they kind of know the political ropes. I think that will be a
14:47kind of problem for them going into that election if there's a perception that
14:50a lot of these, you know, experienced politicians are, are kind of fleeing, for want of a better
14:55word. Yeah, I think there's a risk of that. We could see a lot of new faces. But also,
15:00the SNP may see it as a bit of an asset to have some new faces in there. People have had the SNP
15:06in there for nearly two decades. And obviously, we've had some new people come in during that
15:11period. But largely, people like Nicola Sturgeon were very much of the old days under the SNP. So
15:18like you said, I can't see any situation where she would actually stay at Holyrood. Obviously,
15:25Humza is also calling it a day. I mean, there is gonna be a bit of a bun fight because
15:31the actual potential for the SNP to win seats is not as big as it usually is. Like if you're in
15:37their constituency, in the last couple of elections, you were kind of a shoe in for a lot
15:41of these seats. That's not necessarily going to be the case. There'll be a lot of people from
15:46Westminster, like we've mentioned, who fancy getting back into politics, people like Alison
15:50Thewlis, who've kind of sat on the sidelines since the election, who have been quite quiet,
15:55who we may hear from again on those selection battles. If you look at the last election,
16:00we had sort of Angus Robertson and Neil Gray, who I guess, who came up and have gone straight into
16:05being a minister. Neil Gray's obviously made quite an impact for himself. Angus Robertson's kind of
16:12struggled a little bit, though, probably due to the brief he's got. I think he's been quite
16:16frustrated that a lot of the meetings with all these foreign leaders and representing
16:21kind of Scottish government goes a bit unnoticed. So people will fancy a shot at it. And I think
16:27having some new faces in there is potentially an asset. But also, you're right, that experience
16:31could be crucial, especially if they're in government or if they're not in government.
16:36Yeah, well, moving on to another issue, council tax. We had an announcement from the Scottish
16:42government, I think it was earlier on this week, it feels like a long time ago, actually,
16:45that they're effectively going to open a new consultation process on potentially reforming
16:50council tax as part of a joint programme with COSLA, the council umbrella body. Rachel,
16:56we've heard stuff like this so many times before. I mean, the SNP came to power in 2007,
17:02we were promised to scrap and replace council tax. And obviously, here we are,
17:0718 years down the line, that hasn't happened. I mean, it seems quite reasonable to be very,
17:12very cynical about this, doesn't it? Yeah, it's kind of hard to get excited
17:17about this. One, because it's about taxes, but also because, as you were saying,
17:21this has been on the cards for so unbelievably long. It was promised in the 2007 manifesto,
17:29I think in many more manifestos over the election years, it's been promised. It feels like every
17:34time an election is sort of looming, something happens, there's some sort of announcement that
17:38gets made, and then nothing comes on the back of it. So I feel like, again, we're a year out from
17:43a Scottish Parliament election. So this idea is being put back on the table. But I think the
17:49reaction from all the opposition parties on this, I kind of just sort of puts the mood for this.
17:54They're very much saying, well, we're not really, seriously, we're not really that bothered about
17:58what they do. They don't really want to know about the consultation, because nothing's going to
18:01happen on the back of it. So I think the fact that the opposition parties are just not even
18:05taking it seriously, to be honest, I think probably reflects what a lot of people in the wider public
18:09will think, too. I think if you go around asking people about council tax, they will say it's
18:14unfair, they say it needs to be reformed. I think everybody's in agreement that something needs to
18:18be done, because the way it is just now isn't working for most people. But I don't think there's
18:24much enthusiasm for this consultation, because I think nobody really believes it's going to go
18:28anywhere. It does kind of feel like, oh, an election's coming, we'd better talk about this
18:33again, if that makes sense. It's hard to get excited about it, because there doesn't seem to
18:38be an end point to it. Yeah, what do you make of this, Alex? I mean, the background to this is
18:43obviously, you know, lots and lots of councils are drawing up their budgets at the moment. There's
18:46an expectation that there'll be council tax hikes across Scotland, some councils looking at
18:51potentially quite large council tax hikes, 10%, which will have a huge impact. So is this kind of
18:58a way to sort of distract from that conversation and bring up reform again, even if there's no
19:04real intention to certainly do anything about it anytime soon? Because even if they wanted to at
19:09this stage, there's no way you could get anything in place before the next election. I'm not sure
19:15what, I mean, that could be a possible tactic, but I can only say from a Scottish Labour perspective,
19:19the Scottish Labour MPs I speak to relish and delight in the SNP talking about tax.
19:26They think that the SNP have repeatedly shown they cannot be trusted on taxation, that they
19:32tax people far more than they do down here, that they get far less from it, and that the more the
19:38SNP talk about tax, the more difficult it will be for them in Holyrood, because it just keeps
19:44going up, and people don't get better services. They don't think that anything's going to change,
19:49they think that it's constant lip service. I mean, we had Kate Forbes talking about how
19:53the SNP was going to move away from this, just increasing taxation and announcing new tax policy.
20:00But what does that mean? That's not an announcement, that's an intention to do something.
20:07I don't know how, I don't know the practicalities of implicating policy, you'll be far more across
20:11the detail, but whenever I speak to Scottish MPs about this, and I have this week, it often comes
20:18up as something that they think actually is really going to help them, as we get closer to
20:21Holyrood, the fact that the tax will go up, the SNP will continue to talk about it and not deliver,
20:27and that will then in turn deliver votes for Scottish Labour.
20:30Yeah, and we should probably actually touch on the fact that the reason this is so politically
20:33toxic, David, is the fact that if they reform council tax, there's going to be winners and
20:37losers out of that. There's lots of people who'll be paying less now than they should,
20:41if the council tax was more updated. So that could be, you know, a tricky situation for a
20:47political party to get itself into, if you're effectively reforming a system,
20:51and then hitting people with higher bills.
20:55Oh yeah, completely. I mean, if you look at the public's point of view, if they want reform
20:59council tax, they want it to be cheaper. And it should be said that council tax in Scotland is
21:04generally cheaper than in the rest of the UK, or England and Wales, but it is just seen as
21:09a bit unfair. But the SNP have been claiming it's unfair for literally donkey's years,
21:14and they haven't moved on it at all. Shona Robison was talking at, I think it was Finance
21:19Committee last month about this. She was asked about where are the reforms and was asked if
21:25they were going to happen before this election, which obviously they are not. But then I think
21:30Ross Greer was a bit thrown by the fact that COSLA were leading the talks. He'd been talking to
21:36COSLA about council tax and didn't realise that COSLA had been coordinating this kind of attempt
21:42to get a consensus. So already it's a bit of a mess. And yeah, like you said, there will be
21:47winners and losers. There always is when you reform any sort of taxation. The SNP has got
21:52this kind of reputation of particularly high earners or people who are better off having that
21:59bigger tax burden placed on them. And this could probably be another method for that. We'll have
22:05to wait and find out. But as Rachel said, it's very difficult to get excited about something
22:11we've heard before all these promises and nothing really concrete at all. There's no proposals
22:16that we can look to and think that's how it's going to look like in the future. It's just
22:20trying to build a consensus is like easier said than done and very boring.
22:27On that note, I think it's fair to say that none of us expect council tax to be
22:31reformed anytime soon. But that's all we've got time for on today's podcast. We'll be back
22:37at the same time next week or at some point next week anyway, when we'll be previewing the Scottish
22:42Labour Conference with Anna Sarwar, Scottish Labour leader, and Keir Starmer, the prime minister
22:47expected to address delegates in Glasgow. So we'll be talking about all of that next week. But until
22:53then, thank you very much for listening and please stay tuned to the Scotsman's website for all the
22:57latest news, comment and analysis. Thanks very much.