The Scotsman Bulletin Monday March 31 2025 #TrumpPutin

The Scotsman

Dale speaks to investigations correspondent Martyn McLaughlin abou the latest in the ongoing peace talks between Trump and Putin

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's video bulletin for this Monday. We're almost at April,

00:06it is sun shining and 17, 18 degrees outside today. So hopefully, unlike us, you're not at work

00:14and you are out enjoying the sunshine. But in the meantime, we're going to bring you the latest

00:19on the news from around Scotland, the UK and the rest of the world. I'm joined by our investigations

00:25correspondent, Mardin McLaughlin. Mardin, I'll come to you shortly because we're talking about

00:29the front page of today's Scotsman, firstly. And we'll lead on ministers. This is both

00:36in Edinburgh and the UK being told to make the North Sea future a national mission.

00:42This is a message coming from one of the key task force bodies related to the North Sea.

00:49We know it's a big talking point at the moment. We know that the UK government is reconsidering

00:54licences around Rosebank and Jackdaw. And there's pressure from both sides to continue to supply

01:01some gas from the North Sea so that with regards to our bills that go up higher, but also to make

01:08the green transition that has been spoken about a lot in recent years. So there will be much more

01:13to come there. And the story, Mardin, I wanted to speak to you about was in the wing of that

01:17front page, which is, it was around school violence. And there's some pretty shocking

01:23figures really around the treatment of female teachers in particular. Can you talk us through?

01:28Yeah, absolutely, Dale. It is a really shocking survey from the NESUWT Teachers Union. It surveyed

01:36hundreds of its members across Scotland. And the kind of real stark takeaway from the survey is the

01:42extent of the violence and abuse that is being directed at female teachers in particular.

01:49It found that nearly half of female teachers reported physical abuse or violence in the

01:54classroom in the past 12 months. More than a quarter of female teachers had been hit or

02:01punched in the last year, which is considerably higher than the violence faced by male teachers.

02:09Similarly, one in five female teachers reported being kicked. That's compared to just 8% of male

02:16teachers. So there has been a dialogue and an issue for some time around the issue of violence

02:23and abuse in the classroom. But what this survey really makes clear is this is being directed at

02:29female teachers much more than it is male teachers. And that feeds into more deep rooted concerns

02:36about kind of misogynistic influences and its impact on young male pupils in particular.

02:43Some of the individual testimony from teachers is especially harrowing to read. There was one

02:49teacher of an S2 class who said that last year four of her male pupils opted to write a persuasive

02:57essay in favour of Andrew Tate, praising him as the greatest of all time, including praise of his

03:06view that women are the property of men. So we've had a lot of discussion over the past few years

03:13about the influence of social media on young people and these kind of misogynistic influencers

03:18like Tate, but it's clear that this is really coming home to roost.

03:23It's a really complex issue, Martin. We've got Netflix drama Adolescence at the moment,

03:29which I think is exposing and talking through all the talking points around this. It's quite

03:34an eye opening bit of TV if you haven't seen it yet. But against that,

03:39there's a very complicated situation in schools. It feels our education correspondent,

03:43Calum Ross, has written a lot about the pressures for catering for additional support needs students

03:49and how at different times, some of those issues as well are combined with incidents that are

03:55taking place in our schools. So it is a difficult one to unravel, but a lot of pressure on the

04:00Scottish government to do more than they are currently about this. Martin, I know you track

04:06everything around Donald Trump. Sometimes it feels like not a week goes by where it doesn't

04:11get a little bit odder and a little bit more off the wall, but something that he is central to

04:18is peace talks around Ukraine, and there's been some developments in the past 24 hours.

04:23Yeah, that's right, Dale. It's always eventful weekends where Mr Trump is concerned. He gave

04:30an interview with NBC News, and a sign of how wide-ranging that interview was. We're not even

04:37talking about the possibility of him seeking a third term in office, which is something that he

04:41mentioned to NBC. But certainly one of the main takeaways from that interview was his

04:48rather industrial language about Vladimir Putin. He said he was very angry and pissed off at Putin,

04:55and he seemed to be quite upset about remarks that Putin himself had made to Russian media

05:00at the end of last week, where he questioned the legitimacy of Vladimir Zelensky.

05:08Putin basically said that a peace agreement could be brokered by,

05:13it would have to involve a kind of different administration. He said there were precedents

05:17for this, but Zelensky was not the person to oversee Ukraine's negotiations. Trump has

05:25reacted quite angrily to that, which is quite interesting because it's one of the first times

05:30in a while that we've seen Trump being publicly critical of Putin, and it certainly gives the

05:36impression that Trump is involved in negotiations not just with Russia but with Ukraine. It certainly

05:44gives that impression as to what's happening behind the scenes. No one knows. This could also

05:50just simply be frustration on the part of Trump, who, as we know, posits himself as the great

05:56dealmaker. He made lots of promises before he regained control of the White House that he would

06:03deal with the situation in Ukraine very swiftly. The reality is proving considerably more complex.

06:10You certainly get the sense that Trump is looking at this purely from a business perspective about

06:16what is best for America at the end of the day. We are expecting more details about his plans

06:21for tariffs as the week progresses. There is an ongoing threat around whether those tariffs will

06:29impact more on the UK and Scotland than they currently are, so we're expecting more details

06:34around Wednesday from Trump and the US administration on that, so watch this space

06:40for more news. You can follow all the latest, including reading that story about school

06:45violence that Martin wrote for today at scottsman.com. Please follow us on all social media

06:53channels and pick up a copy of the paper tomorrow for all your very latest in news, both here and

07:00abroad. Thanks for joining us.

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