The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday October 23 2024 #USelection

The Scotsman

Dale speaks to political correspondent Rachel Amery about the growing row over UK politicians campaigning for Kamala Harris #Kamala #USelection #Trump

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday. My name's Darryl

00:05Miller. I'm Deputy Editor at The Scotsman and I'm joined by our political correspondent,

00:10Rachel Armory. Rachel, welcome. We're going to get talking about Donald Trump and his camp

00:19targeting Labor shortly, but let's pull up the front page of today's Scotsman. And we led on

00:27plans for German anti-sub aircraft to operate from Lossiemouth. This is part of coordination

00:35between several countries to combat what's seen as the ongoing threat coming out of Russia. We

00:41also had a piece from Martin McLaughlin, basically looking at the sheriff's recommendations to come

00:48out of the death of toddler Xander Irvin. He was a three-year-old killed in 2020 when he was hit by

00:57a pensioner driving a vehicle. There was suggestions from the sheriff that additional

01:03restrictions around older drivers need to be introduced. And it's something that has been

01:08discussed between UK and Scottish governments over the past month. So watch this space that

01:13could be coming. We also had an excellent exclusive you can read at scotsman.com from

01:18Brian Ferguson on plans for Edinburgh's first new public gardens for more than 200 years

01:25that would have views of Arthur's Seat, Carlton Hill and other areas. It's an exciting project

01:30and you can see all the images, the design images attached to that in our Scotsman story. Rachel,

01:38you've been writing already today about the US election. We're only two weeks out exactly,

01:44pretty much now, and the Donald Trump camp are not happy with Labor and Keir Starmer.

01:50Yes, this is the Donald Trump campaign team. They have put an official complaint to the Federal

01:56Election Commission in the US saying that the Labour Party in the UK has had blatant

02:01foreign interference in the presidential election. It's for a number of reasons. This is because

02:06according to Donald Trump's campaign there has been connections and dialogue between the Labour

02:12Party and Kamala Harris's campaign and also because of a LinkedIn post by a party official

02:18suggesting that they could help facilitate housing for activists in the Labour Party to

02:23go to the US to campaign for Harris's democratic campaign. So it's all getting a bit sort of tied

02:29in knots at the moment in the US side of things. On the UK side of things, Sir Keir Starmer,

02:35now he's actually I think still on a 28-hour flight at the moment to Samoa to attend a

02:40conference. He's kind of been in in the air flying when all this is sort of picked off,

02:45but he is basically saying no, there's been no interference here. People who are going to

02:50the Labour Party are going over to America in a personal capacity and are using their own funds

02:55and nothing has been organised or funded by the Labour Party. Also very keen to say that

03:02whoever does win the US presidential election in a fortnight's time, the UK government has a duty

03:07to work with whoever wins, whether that be Kamala Harris or Donald Trump. But on the American side,

03:13on Donald Trump's team, they're very much not happy. Last night on BBC Newsnight, for example,

03:18Richard Grenell, now he is hoping to become Secretary of State if Donald Trump wins the

03:22election. He says this is an open and shut case of election interference. So a lot of upset and

03:28unhappiness, but Sir Keir Starmer of the Labour Party really tried to play it down and say that

03:32there's nothing that's been done wrong here. Rachel, as someone who's done those long flights

03:38to the southern hemisphere many times, good luck to Keir Starmer on the jet lag and being able to

03:43answer questions around this when he touches down. Just moving on more locally, you've written about

03:51a couple of things over the past 24 hours. Firstly, Iceland. There was a couple of Scottish

03:57politicians that were there over the course of this week. Just talk us through why. Yes, so this

04:02is three Scottish politicians, so Presiding Officer of the Parliament Alison Johnstone,

04:07Labour MSP Monica Lennon and the SNP MSP Ben Macpherson. The three of them have actually

04:13been in Iceland at the Arctic Circle Assembly. It's quite unusual, I thought, why are Scottish

04:18politicians going to this assembly in the Arctic? Basically, it's a conference that happens every

04:23year on nations across the world trying to engage more with the Arctic nations. And this Scottish

04:29trio have gone ahead saying they want to improve relations with Nordic nations and things like that.

04:36And this is on the back of last year when the Scottish government issued a big statement

04:40basically trying to play up Scotland's role in sort of working with the Arctic and the rest of

04:45Europe as well. So that's basically why they've gone across there. So I've seen some comments

04:50on our stories already that some people feel that they've just had a bit of a jolly on holiday,

04:54but it was to attend a conference and it was to sort of try and improve relations and try and

04:58improve the Parliament's reputation internationally, because the Parliament's very keen to work with

05:04Nordic nations which of course are our very close side. Yeah, I know you're explaining a piece up

05:10on the site, you can see that the politics tab on the navigation bar. Rachel makes the point that

05:16parts of Scotland are very close to Iceland and the Arctic Circle, so geography plays a part there.

05:23You're also writing about an issue that Kate Forbes has raised, you can go and read that at

05:30scotsman.com shortly. Just talk us through that. Yes, this is a statement that's come out from

05:36Children First, the charity, and they have declared a childhood emergency in Scotland,

05:42mostly because of the impact that social media is having on children in Scotland. They've carried

05:48out this survey that shows that most adults are very concerned about the impact social media is

05:53having on their children, and also around two-thirds saying that they believe growing up in Scotland

05:58now is worse than it has ever been because of this specifically. So Kate Forbes is on the radio this

06:04morning being asked about this and she says that yes, the Scottish Government is investing millions

06:08in trying to tackle child mental health, including trying to fund local community-based mental health

06:13services, but she was very keen to say that that is very much reactionary, there needs to be more

06:18done on the prevention side, and although the Government and civic society has a role to play

06:23there, she was also saying that social media giants need to be playing their part too. This is on the

06:28back of Ofcom earlier in the year, suggesting that websites have to do more to stop children

06:34viewing harmful content online, so it all ties in together with that basically. It's basically

06:39trying to highlight the harms that children can get from social media at the moment.

06:46Rachel, as someone that's got to grapple with a nine-year-old and their social media and tablet

06:50use, I completely understand it is one of the biggest concerns for any parent out there.

06:56You can read that story at scotsman.com. As always, as I've said, the politics tab in the

07:03navigation bar will give you all our latest coverage, including the ongoing coverage in

07:08the run-up to the US election in the first week of November. You can follow Rachel's profile page

07:16for all her latest stories on the site as well. Thanks very much, Rachel, and everyone else for

07:22joining us, and please go out and buy a copy of The Scotsman tomorrow.

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