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Scotsman Bulletin Tuesday 21 November
The Scotsman
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21/11/2023
Scotsman Bulletin Tuesday 21 November
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News
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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.
08:02
(upbeat music)
08:04
(upbeat music)
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