The Scotsman Bulletin Friday June 07 2024 #DouglasRoss

The Scotsman

Scotsman deputy editor Alan Young and political correspondent Rachel Amery discuss the announcement by Douglas Ross that he will stand in the next election

Transcript

00:00 Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Friday. I'm Alan Young, I'm Deputy

00:14 Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by our political correspondent Rachel Emery to

00:17 take a look at the election campaign latest. Hi Rachel. Good morning. Let's have a look

00:23 at the front page first off. We lead today with a very striking picture from the D-Day

00:31 commemorations yesterday as Alone Piper plays at Sunrise and the words there from the King

00:40 at the commemoration service in France. Also on the front page today we begin the countdown

00:47 of Scotland's 50 greatest players in the lead up to Euro 2024 kicking off next week. You

00:55 may be able to see on the wing column there the big political story of the day and that

00:59 was Douglas Ross and his U-turn on standing for the Westminster Parliament. That's where

01:06 I want to start Rachel because this is a big story yesterday, an emergency press conference

01:12 at half past nine where Douglas Ross suddenly announced that he would be standing in a North

01:17 East seat and this comes after he's been insisting reasonably consistently that he's going to

01:24 stand down as an MP to focus on the Scottish Parliament. Bring us up to date with what

01:30 happened yesterday first. Well yesterday morning we got a two hour notice of this emergency

01:35 press conference in the middle of Edinburgh so I was actually on the train into work in

01:39 the morning when I got the notification through to be going to this conference. So basically

01:43 on Wednesday evening David Dukett who has been the MP for Banff and Buchan for quite

01:48 a number of years now, he posted online to say that he had been deselected as the Conservative

01:54 candidate for Aberdeenshire North and Moray East. He's unwell at the moment, he's in Queen

02:00 Elizabeth Hospital in Glasgow in the spinal injuries unit and the party wouldn't go into

02:05 a lot of detail about his condition but it doesn't sound like he's in a very good way

02:09 at all and that is why he has been deselected as the candidate. So we all turned up at this

02:14 press conference in Edinburgh yesterday morning and Douglas Ross said that it's a seat the

02:19 Conservatives are very likely to win, the polls suggest it's a seat they're going to

02:23 get but David Dukett can no longer stand in that seat and they need somebody else at the

02:29 last minute to take the place and that person is going to be Douglas Ross. Now this was

02:33 at half past nine yesterday morning, the party deadlines for nominations was 11am the same

02:39 day so only an hour or so after this conference and of course the deadline for the official

02:44 nominations is 4pm today so it really did need to be a quick turnaround which is why

02:49 it was so rushed yesterday morning. It doesn't quite end there though because David Dukett

02:57 who is a very well known figure and former minister indeed in the Scotland office, he's

03:04 insisting that he is fit to stand. Yes on social media we've seen these posts saying

03:10 that he was looking forward to it and he's disappointed to not be standing. However when

03:15 we spoke to Douglas Ross yesterday and we said you know have you spoken to David Dukett

03:20 about this, have you had a conversation with him in the hospital and again he said he can't

03:24 go into details of his condition but he's not in a position to be speaking. So I don't

03:30 know what the sort of the conflict there is but basically it sounded like he's not in

03:34 a position where he's able to have that conversation physically with Douglas Ross anyway so that's

03:40 something as well that's slightly confusing about what's happened here. In terms of the

03:46 political, in terms of like the party for the Conservatives I think it does make sense,

03:50 they are on track to win this seat. It does sound like it's probably, you know in terms

03:55 of like trying to get his recovery on track it's maybe not a good idea for David Dukett

03:58 to be running in such a sort of stressful situation but of course it does give a lot

04:03 of fodder to the opposition parties, the SNP and the Labour Party in particular. They see

04:09 it as him doing a sort of a frage move by saying he wasn't going to stand and then you

04:13 turning on that at the last moment. He's also had a lot of criticism because that means

04:17 he will have three jobs. Of course he's an MSP in Holyrood as well and of course an SFA

04:22 linesman too. But in terms of, I probably should point out at this point I think it's

04:26 his Holyrood salary he actually donates all of that to charity so there are a lot of criticisms

04:31 on social media this morning about how if he wins this seat he'll continue to have three

04:36 salaries. It's probably good to point out at this point that one of his salaries, I

04:39 think it's his Holyrood one, does get donated to charity here. But that's basically what

04:44 we're grappling with now is the optics of it, the opposition parties seeing it as a

04:47 callous nasty move, the Conservatives seeing it as necessary for David Shugart's health

04:53 and for the party to win this seat.

04:57 And Douglas Ross has been on the radio defending it this morning I believe. What has he been

05:02 saying?

05:03 Yes, he was on BBC Good Morning Scotland today of course recapping what was said yesterday

05:08 and basically just sort of defending the decision saying that it's not something that's callous

05:12 and backstabbing or anything else like that. Trying to sort of rebuff the criticisms of

05:17 the other parties because I think the SNP were also on the radio this morning criticising

05:21 it and basically just saying it is the right decision to be taking. We also asked yesterday

05:27 at the press conference, I mean the outcome, what's going to happen with him. He says if

05:32 he does win he intends to serve the full five years. So even if David Shugart does make

05:37 a full recovery and is then able to contest the seat in a by-election for example, it

05:42 sounds like that wouldn't happen if Douglas Ross wins the seat. He also confirmed that

05:47 he would not resign as a Holyrood MSP if he does win. Of course he has been an MSP and

05:53 an MP for the past three years so it's something he is used to doing at the same time. He also

05:57 said that if he loses that election he will not resign as Scottish Party leader either

06:02 so he's very much determined to continue on as it were.

06:07 Interesting times Alan, I am certain we haven't heard the end of this story. Thanks very much

06:12 for talking us through that. Rachel please keep an eye on scotstun.com throughout the

06:16 day for all the very latest news and analysis. If you can do subscribe then you'll be able

06:20 to read and watch absolutely everything we do. And if you're out and about today please

06:25 do pick up a copy of the paper from me and from Rachel. Bye for now.

06:29 Goodbye.

06:30 [Music]

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