The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday May 01 2024 #SNP #Politics

The Scotsman

Scotsman deputy editor Alan Young speaks to deputy political editor David Bol about the day ahead in the Scottish Parliament

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC]

00:10 Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Wednesday. I'm Alan Young,

00:13 I'm Deputy Editor of The Scotsman. I'm joined today by our Deputy Political Editor, David

00:18 Bull, to talk through some of the main headlines. Well, let's face it, one headline you're going to

00:23 be talking about, David. How's it going? Yeah, morning Alan, not bad, thanks.

00:27 Good. Let's have a look at the front page first. And yes, we lead with continuing coverage of the

00:35 SNP and the not quite a leadership race, but there are two front runners, as we know. Kate Forbes,

00:44 pictured there on the front page yesterday at Scottish Parliament, former Finance Secretary,

00:51 is considering running. And our line on the story there is that she would be more popular with the

00:57 Scottish public as a whole. However, the other contender who has emerged is John Swinney,

01:04 former Deputy First Minister, and he is favoured by SNP members. That's according to that snap

01:10 poll yesterday. Also pictured on the front there, we've got the King out and about his visits to a

01:18 cancer centre yesterday, his first official public engagement. So, David, who's going to be next

01:26 First Minister? That's a very good question. We still haven't got any candidates, so it could be

01:32 anyone, but it does look like a two-horse race between these two, Kate Forbes and John Swinney.

01:38 There's sort of speculation Kate Forbes might announce a bid today, but we don't know. We don't

01:44 know what's being weighed up, whether they're waiting to see if the other one is a bit of a

01:47 game of chess at the moment, it seems like. There's sort of speculation this morning that Kate Forbes

01:53 is developing some policy proposals ahead of launching a bid, but again, we'll just have to

01:58 wait to see what happens. Indeed, before that, or before we might discover or have some clarity

02:07 in the SNP leadership contest or not, there is still, incredibly, a vote of confidence in the

02:16 government. Yeah, Labour are still determined to push this vote of no confidence in the government.

02:21 It does seem a bit, just basically a bit of political theatre from Labour, maybe feeling a

02:25 bit left out that the Tories pushed the motion that eventually saw Hamza Yousaf resign, the Greens

02:32 obviously being very heavily involved. Yeah, it's not going to pass. The Greens have kind of made

02:39 clear that now Hamza Yousaf has decided he's going to leave, that they're satisfied that an SNP

02:44 minority government is kind of the only way forward. But obviously, there'll be lots of talk

02:48 and I imagine it's one for Labour leaflets coming up to the election more than anything else.

02:54 Indeed, and I know it's impossible to say how things are going to go, as you point out,

03:00 no one's actually declared yet in this contest to replace Hamza Yousaf. There is, though, a feeling

03:10 that the party would like to get on with it and there certainly seems to be key senior figures

03:18 behind John Swinney lining up a coronation. There's also been a bit of pushback from Kate Forbes'

03:25 side of the party to that idea. Yeah, I think the last thing the SNP would want right now is a

03:31 leadership contest. If you look back to last year, it was horrendous for them. It did no one any

03:36 favours. It was just mudslinging and Hamza Yousaf went into that job with a lot of baggage and a lot

03:42 of criticism from his allies that were just pointed out on a daily basis. So the last thing they want

03:48 is that. And you're right, a lot of senior figures, a lot of cabinet ministers have come out and said,

03:53 "Oh, if John wants to stand, we're fully behind him. He's the best man for it." There's a bit of

04:00 talk that he maybe doesn't want a leadership contest. So this is probably why we're seeing

04:04 a lot of this push early on. Hopefully that no one will stand against him and he can just kind of

04:10 be coronated, as you said. But obviously, Kate Forbes' team and people who think maybe John

04:15 Swinney isn't the best for the SNP at this stage, he's maybe had his time, would like a contest.

04:21 And Kate Forbes would very much like a contest to be kind of put to members, given she did

04:26 quite well in last year's leadership contest. She wasn't far behind Hamza Yousaf. Obviously,

04:31 that poll this morning and yesterday shows that Swinney is kind of more popular with the members,

04:37 who's the first sort of people she's got to convince. But maybe members will look at the

04:42 fact that she's more popular with the public and think, well, maybe that's what we need and

04:45 are more likely to kind of back her. Indeed. Fascinating times. And we've also got our eye

04:54 on Westminster, of course, because it's the local elections in England tomorrow. And that

05:00 could have a very real impact on when a general election is called. I mean, yeah, we could be

05:06 in a position where that is looking like it could go very badly for us. I mean, it's pretty bad

05:13 already. This could just be a final kind of nail in the coffin from a lot of his MPs who just may

05:19 be sort of on manoeuvres. This could be a good sort of reason to sort of put that pressure on

05:23 him to call that election or to set aside even the still speculation that might happen. So it

05:28 could all explode at Westminster as well as Holyrood this week. Fascinating times. Thanks,

05:33 David. I'll let you get back to it. Please keep an eye on Scotsman.com where we'll be trying to

05:38 make sense of everything throughout the day. If you can do subscribe to the site, then you'll be

05:44 able to read absolutely everything. And if you're out and about today on the 1st of May, please do

05:51 pick up a copy of the paper for me and from David. Bye for now.

05:55 [Music]

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