SNP Governance and Future Strategy

Thanks for listening to The Rest is Politics. Sign up to The Rest is Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members' chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to the rest is politics.com. That's the rest is politics.com . You did call for the Prime Minister Keir Sama to resign, right? I mean that's a big deal for a Labour leader in Scotland. I was making it abundantly clear that my first priority and my first loyalty is to my country, Scotland, and frankly, I don't really care what people in Westminster think. I only care what people in Scotland think. Yeah, but you must care who the Prime Minister is. Look, I'm not doing it to run against a UK Labour government. I'm running against a Scottish SNP government. Let's be honest. Are we spending every penny of public money well? We're not. We will demonstrate to the rest of the UK how you can win in the politics of hope and unity, not feed off the politics of despair. I guess you're very politely skirting around one of the massive things. I'm happy to not be polite, Roddy, and don't let me skirt cut to the cheese. I'm happy to cut to the cheese . This episode is brought to you by IG. If you're listening to this podcast, the chances are you're someone who thinks seriously about politicsics, econom, and your own financial future? You probably also understand that volatility can also mean opportunity. So rather than waiting for things to settle down, you're wondering how to invest. And that's where IG comes in. They've been trusted by British investors for over fifty years through every kind of market condition you can think of. IG offers zero commission on your investments, zero account fees, and they were just voted best low-cost ISA at the 2026 Boring Money Awards. 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He is a second generation Labour member of Parliament who followed his dad, Mohammed, into the Westminster Parliament before losing his seat in twenty fifteen after just one term. A year after that he became a member of the Scottish Parliament, and five years after that he became leader of Scottish Labour. And in Scottish elections on May the 7th, so 30 odd days away, he hopes to become Scotland's first minister after 19 years of an SNP government. Now that prospect looked very likely after the last UK general election when Scotland played its part in the Labour landslide, since when SNP fortunes seem to have recovered and Labour's fortunes have declined sufficient for Annas to call for none other than Keir Starmer to resign as Prime Minister. We'll get into all of that. But I think we like to start with the backstory, don't we, Rory? And Annas does have quite a good backstory. You definitely do, Annas. Let's start with your your father, um who I I remember, and of course I remember you coming into Parliament in twenty ten. Tell us a little bit about your father and mother and a little bit about your father's political career, which was quite unusual in many ways. Yeah look I mean I had a really m different onbringing in the sense of I was being brought up in a household where my dad when I was in my really early years trying to set up and doing it really well a successful family business, successful uh wholesale business, and then uh wanting to become a counselor in the city of Glasgow and then obviously wanting to become Britain's first Muslim member of Parliament. And while lots of people it's interesting you mentioned about both my mum and my dad, it's really interesting because lots of people think that automatically somehow maybe I get my politics from my my dad, but in actual fact I always say that the best politician in our family and the person that's probably got the most values based in terms of that uh politics is probably my mum, and she's probably a much better politician than I or my But just think about upbringing a house full of love , even if perhaps not expressed by the old man, always motivated, always being driven, particularly by mum, but also posed its challenges when in terms of um being brought up in a political household and and my dad trying to be Britain's first Muslim member of Parliament. And in a weird way, because he was a politician and because of many of the dark things that we had to experience because either he wanted to be a politician or after he became an elected member in the House of Commons, it really put me off politics. I hated the idea of being an elected member. So I was a member of the Labour Party. I love being a member of the Labour Party. I love being involved in campaigns. But the idea of being an elected member honestly repulsed me and it's one of the reasons why I went to study to be a dentist and worked in the NHS as a dentist and it's one of the reasons why um my dad and I fell out at one point because he was very keen for me to be a politician. I was desperate not to be a politician because of some of the things we experienced growing up. He won. Absolutely. He all is it's really funny because he m he makes a point even to this day of reminding me that every day he was a Member of Parliament was every day of the Labour Party being in government and every day of me being in politics is every day of Labour being in opposition when I was in Westminster or an opposition when I'm in the Scottish Parliament. So I need to break that duck in the election. Well you do, but if I'd written down your dad 'cause he came in in nineteen ninety seven as part of the first new election. Yeah he totally credits himself for Labour's landslide. And then he went down in twenty ten. So what happened to get you from a place where you had absolutely zero interest in being a p politician to then actually following him into parliament in the same seat. I suppose I should first of all explain why I was repulsed by the idea of being an elected member. Proud that he was able to be Britain's first member of Parliament. But you know, m my earliest political memory is when I was about twelve years old leaving to go to school and there was a strange looking envelope on our doorstep and And being a really curious young boy, O Luke picked up this envelope, made the mistake of opening it up, and there was a mocked up picture of my mum tied to a chair with two guns pointed to her head and in cut out letters from the newspapers it said bang bang that's all it takes and it was a message from Combat eighteen, a far right organization at the time, who were dead against the idea of electing Britain's first Muslim member of Parliament. And obviously it sh shook me and shook our family. And the experience of coming home from school, having to go to the police station, give my fingerprints because obviously I touched this letter and they had to exclude uh my fingerprints from it. And that made me think this is not a normal situation I would want my kids to grow up in. So the idea of being in politics really, really repulsed me. And then when I started off as an NHS dentist in Paisley, I saw firsthand the impact that not just your oral health impacts on someone's out comes but I lost count of the number of seventeen year olds, eighteen year olds, nineteen year olds that I was having to do full dental clearances, so literally pulling out all their teeth and replacing it with full acrylic dentures . And I got to see firsthand the direct impact of poverty, of inequality, of addiction, of family background, a lack of access to skills and good employment, and the impact that then has on health and it gave me a hunger and a passion to want to do public service properly. And then one of my uh best pals who was also a counsellor in Renfrewshire at the time came to see me um and asked if I'd have dinner with them one night after I'd finished my clinic in Paisley and we went to a local restaurant in Paisley and he was like, you know, you'll know this from lots of Labour Party conversations, Alistair. This was in the run up to the two thousand and seven Scottish Parliament election. He said to me, you know, we don't really have a diverse group of candid ates. And so you'd be really doing us a favour if we can add your name to a as a candidate, as a paper candidate, so we can talk about having diverse candidates. And I was like, okay, where do you want me to stand? And he goes, uh will you be the candidate in Selkirk and Roxborough? And I had no idea where he was talking about. And I was like, Listen, I am not going to be the candidate in Selkirk and Roxborough, but if you want me to make up the numbers on a regional list somewhere I'll do it so So I agreed to stand on the Glasgow list. I got involved in the campaign really heavily to try and get high up on the list and I ended up coming top of the Glasgow list and actually combined with what I was seeing in Paisley and getting the bug of going through that first election campaign, I think that kinda sparked that interest to be in frontline politics. This threatening, I mean kind of illegal bullying that you were experiencing there. And actually, this morning I've just been in a fight with John Cleese on Twitter, who's just put out a message saying: Muslims are people who follow a holy book that says that anyone they don't like should be killed. I then found myself in a world of hundreds of people, including Tommy Robinson and others weighing in. And they seem to be trying to sell a line that uh Islam is a kind of inherently evil religion and that they they claim not to be racist, they claim to just have a particular problem with a theology, but they're trying to apply that theology to nearly two billion people around the world. I just wondered uh how do you process this? How do you deal with this? How do you argue against it? How do you make the case? Why is this happening? What's going on? It's a really good question 'cause I think the way I think about lots of these things is less what it means for an individual faith. But I think being a dad of three boys, I think about it a lot in the frame of fatherhood and a sense of identity and belonging for them, and obviously for for for me in in the Scottish context. And it's interesting you mention this individual that said these comments to you, like in the Hamilton and Lark Allstonehouse by election, we had a what is now sadly a mainstream political party. We had reform spend tens of thousands of pounds on a Facebook advert claiming that I would priorit ise Pakistan rather than prioritise Scotland. And even today one of Reform's candidates has said that they're open to the idea of repeating that ad in this election campaign. There's another candidate for reform that says that all Muslims in Scotland should be deported. So I so I think about obviously what it means for me is a politician, but actually I I think about what does it mean for my kids. Are they are they suggesting that my sons who are third generation Scots, born and brought up here, have no apart from their skin colour and where their grandparents were born, have no real affinity or identity with Pakistan. They are Scots, they are Brits, they're nothing else, and they won't view themselves as anywhere else. Why is their identity being questioned? Why is their belonging being questioned? And this weaponization of faith and trying to create a homogeneous block, whether it be automatically every Muslim must think the same or every Jewish person must think the same , or every, you know, evangelical Christian must think the same. That's not how life is, and that's not how humans are. And for me, faith has always been something that brings people together and unites people rather than finds difference with people. And I just think there's too many people that want to use it as a way to weaponize for their own either warped ideology or a way to to do politics is which is about division. And it does seem to me growing. I mean you you're reminding us that it's been around a long time because you were experiencing this when you were eleven years old. But it seems to be so active now. I mean if you look at the AFD in Germany, if you look at some of the people around Tommy Robinson, they are, I think, trying to specifically I mean you've mentioned that these comments could be made about a lot of religions, and you're right, but this seems to be a real attempt to target Muslims and to portray Islam in this very essentialist way. You've got, as you say, people in Scotland talking about deporting, you've got people in Germany saying that there's gonna be re migration. What's causing this and how does one address this and deal with this and argue against it? I mean is there a a way of trying to make Aaron Powell So I think it's it definitely feels like it's on the rise. And I often question whether that's because we're online and because there's these voices and amplification that didn't exist before. Is it because it's more prevalent now or it's easier to say now or it's more open now? I never truly set upon one on that. Maybe it was always underlying but those people didn't have a voice. Now they've got a platform, they've got a voice, or maybe it is on the rise now. But I think one thing is certainly clear is there are people now who are willing to use it and weaponize it for political purposes. So the concept of like fear and blame is there are lots of people that feel a deep frustration about what's happening in their lives, legitimately. And there's lots of people that think government doesn't work for them, things are broken, this is as good as it gets, our country's going backwards, nothing works, nothing can ever work. So we need to smash the system. And then they have a layer on top of that of whether it's figures uh who are looking for attention or followers or to be voices online , or whether it's even politicians or looking to get power who think how do we weaponize those problems and find a group of people to point at and say we wouldn't have these problems if it wasn't for them over there? And that fear, blame, us versus them culture, I think is probably the single biggest political divide in the UK and probably globally now for this generation of of politicians. And I actually feel a bit of a s personal responsibility how we fight back against that because the answer to that is do you do an us versus them politics and think we create a different version of us versus them? Or do we create some kind of all of us to confront it? And that I think is what we have to do. How do we take on the genuine despair, the genuine mistrust that people have and give them solutions and pull our country together in the process and tell a story, a positive story in the process. That I think is the single biggest challenge facing Scottish, UK and global politics right now. But one could argue that the biggest single dri ver of it is Donald Trump. He's the president of the United States of America. He's got Scottish blood through his his mother, and he has an absolute loathing of Sadiq Khan, the Maory of London, way beyond any sense of Sadiq's actual real power as the Mayor of London, which is clearly in my mind driven by the fact that he doesn't like the colour of his skin and he may or may not like the his religion. Are you worried if you become first minister that you because he probably doesn't know that much about you? Are you worried that you then become the new Sadiq Khan? And what what do you then do about that? Because I think we pander to this guy way too much. So there's a couple things in that. One is Sadiq Khan is a proud Londoner, yes, a Liverpool football fan, but still a proud uh Londoner, and someone that wants to deliver for every community in London rather than just be the voice for one community in London. But there is an attempt to other him very, very often. I think he's done quite a good job of looking like and sounding like the voice of London. And for me, there'll be lots of attempts to other me to claim I'm not I am successful in this election and that is our definitely our intention and our goal. The one thing I would push back on is I think it's too easy an analysis to say it's all Donald Trump's fault. No, it's all him, but he does drive a lot of this. So I would agree that there is a driving of it from individuals, Donald Trump being one of them, but there's an underlying sentiment, fear and failure that then is weaponized by politicians like Donald Trump in order to try and get the outcome they want. How do we address that underlying and find a different way of challenging and telling a story that confronts that kind of politics? I th I think is the big, big challenge for this generation. No and I guess w when you were describing your your time as a dentist and taking the full set of teeth out of young people, that was during a period when we had a Labour government. So we were failing them as well. I actually think there's undoubtedly a challenge so back in so it was two thousand seven when the SNP came to power and so I spent some of my time of course when there was a Scottish Labour government as well as uh when there was an SNP government. But I think huge progress was made under a Labour government. And I'm not going to pretend for a second that every single thing that the SNP has done in Scotland the last twenty years has been bad. 'Cause I just think any politician that tells you that just isn't telling the truth. There's a reason why they kept winning elections for twenty years. There's a reason why people kept voting for them because they were doing some things that were good, but my argument is they've lost their way and they aren't what they were and we need a change of uh government in Scotland, new ideas, uh new leadership, new energy, etc. But are there communities that feel as if structurally they've been left behind? I think the honest answer to that is yes. So it's interesting. So we've talked about Rory's mentioned around the impact on Muslim communities around the rise in Islamophobia or the impact on you mentioned around Sadiqan impact on minority communities and the r the rise of of racism. I think one of the dangers we have is let's not pretend that there's a hierarchy of inequality that exists in our country. Let's be really honest. For many working class communities, I think about the East End of Glasgow where we are just now, for generations, young people in the East End of Glasgow, young white boys, their life chances out,comes, and life expectancy is defined not by their talent, not by their knowledge, not by their ability, but by their post score and their social background. That is scandalous and shouldn't happen. So we've got to address those underlying harder issues if we are also going to take on that politics of freedom blame at the same time. Mm-hmm. One of the things that has seems to have not worked as well in Scotland under the S and P is education. We grew up in a world where we looked at Scottish education as being the great exemplar of the world. And actually the results have been pretty disappointing. I suppose my question to you is are you prepared to do what it takes to really radically reform the education system, or is it just going to be a if you win, a c continuation of the S P which looks like a pretty lax kind of indulgent of of of old ideas of education and not really transforming the life chances of those people from working class communities you're talking about? Mm-hmm. So I think the short answer is yes, we will take that different approach, because the opposite would be an absolute dereliction of duty, and we'll not doing fair by a generation. So you you're right, Rory. Scotland had this history and tradition of education and it being an example to the rest of the UK and to the rest of the world. But let's be honest about what's happening in far too many places in Sc ottish education right now. Our literacy and numeracy rates are have declined. We're way behind in terms of where we need to be around science and technology. Our proportion of uh children that are now classed as having some kind of additional support need has increased to forty three percent of pupils at school. At the same time the resources and classrooms have been pulled back, so at the same time as ASN numbers have gone up to forty-three percent, the number of ASN teachers has fallen by almost twenty percent. And we have lack of discipline in our schools, partly with what happens with mobile phones, partly because we don't have in many places permanent contracts for teachers, too many resources taken away, and a curriculum for excellence that was introduced as a good concept but actually does not promote excellence, instead has seen the gap narrow between different social demographics more by the top coming down rather than raising everybody up. And that fundamentally has to change. So we will not scrap exams because I think you still need exams. Of course you do. But we have to change the culture that exists in our schools and the kind of education. So how do we have uh mobile phones banned in our classrooms so people can concentrate on their education, not on their brains being polluted by dopamine hits that come from algorithms or social media feeds. We can get discipline in the classrooms. How do we get more classroom assistance round our teachers so we can make sure every kid in the class is getting the time they need? And the reason why I think that's really important is because you if you imagine a class of thirty plus with a teeth with one teacher, no classroom assistant, if forty three percent of that class has some kind of additional support need, if there is distractions in the classroom because of the mobile phone, if there's really bad discipline and behavior, just think about those kids in that classroom who that little bit of nudge extra time with their teacher could be the difference between them getting into an apprenticeship, a college place, a university. That's life changing for them. And right now we don't have a system that works for all those kids. So we have to change that and get all those things. And then when they leave school, how do we make sure we don't have this culture in Scotland that just says if you go to university, we're going to throw every kind of resource at you and you are the chosen ones. But if you don't chose to choose to go to university, you are somehow written off. There is no one right path. So how do we invest in our colleges? How do we maintain free tuition but do it differently? How do we invest in apprenticeships and how do we finally link the growth areas in our economy to the skills we need in our country around defence, around AI, around technology? All these are huge, huge opportunities for us. I know that's a really long answer to what your question was, but fundamentally I've always been a believer that the best route out of poverty is a good education, an adequate skill, and a well-paid job, rather than simply thinking about a welfare payment. I believe in the welfare state, but it's a sticking plaster that doesn't challenge and end structural poverty. How are we going to end structural poverty in Scotland? It's through good education, good skill, good well paid job. Now you know what I'm going to come at you with now. Your dad educated you privately, that was his choice . And I can see Rory getting his Rory and I argue about private education a lot, but you educate your children privately. Why? So every family will have conversations with their own household , every family will talk about decisions that they think are best for their child. And one of the things I've been really conscious of is that different kids in different ways will have different challenges in their lives. So I'm really lucky then that my I didn't have to worry about food on the table and bills when I was growing up. My kids are lucky in that same sense too. But how do we have an education system that works for every kid right across uh the country and that's why I'm so determined to fix that going forward. But do you know I think that if you become first minister , the somebody who's watching what you say and do in relation to education would maybe feel more compelled to listen and follow if actually you were saying my kids are in the state say too. Trevor Burrus So look, I don't pretend to be something I'm not. I don't hide away from decisions either that I have made or my family have made about our kids or anything else. I'm I've very much lived all my since I was twelve all my life very much in the public domain. People know who I am. They can make judgments based on who I am. They've made those judgments since I became leader. They've made those judgments obviously in the election in twenty twenty four and they'll make those judgments in this election campaign as well. But am I determined to deliver a country that gives every young person a chance and an opportunity? Absolutely I am . Because right now so many of our kids are written off at birth and that cannot be allowed to happen. Some people might say listening to you, the Labour default often sounds like we just need more money. We need more rules resources . We're not giving enough money to teachers. We don't have enough teaching assistance. But you might say, you don't need maybe even to be Donald Trump to say that the UK economy is really struggling. It's not really growing. And you know, your family ran a business and you must be aware of how many regulations there are, how much red tape there are, is how how non-business friendly in many ways the British economy has become. A lot of investment is leaving, not much investment's coming in. So what would you do to actually restructure, make it more business friendly, get more entrepreneurs in, get the economy growing? Or am I sounding too right wing? I wholeheartedly agree with you, Rory , because I think that's it probably what makes me different from previous Scottish Labour leaders and gives me a different understanding about all these things. So I grew up in an entrepreneurial family. I spent lots of my childhood sweeping floors in my old man's warehouses, stacking the shelves and seeing and taking lots of questions about buying margins and such like, so thinking about businesses and costs. I then spent time in our public services, obviously being a NHS dentists and Paisley, and then sp have spent the last sixteen years in in politics. So I've got a view of all three of those different sides. And if I'm honest, I don't think more money is the answer. I think one, how you generate wealth and use that wealth in a way to fund a functioning public sector I think is really important. How you inspire entrepreneurship and celebrate success is also really important. I think too often as a country, success is seen as quite a dirty word or ambition is seen as a dirty word when in actual fact if we don't have entrepreneurship, if we don't have successful businesses, we don't have anything else because you only get social change if it's backed up with a strong growing economy. So I will always be an economics first politician. Secondly, let's be honest. Are we spending every penny of public money well? We're not. And so much of what is accepted and tolerated in the public sector would never be accepted or tolerated in the private sector or indeed in the third sector. So we've got to spend the money better in Scotland. But we've also got to not just keep slicing the cake into thinner and thinner pieces, we've got to increase the size of the cake . And if we fill the growth gap that exists in Scotland, so if our economy in Scotland had grown at the same rate as the rest of the UK bar London, we would actually have eight hundred million pounds more to spend on our public services every year. So to your question on what we would do differently is I want to be a first minister that's a deal maker that gets things done, not just one that legislates and regulates. Secondly our tax rates are too high in Scotland. How do we drive down tax rather than using it as a substitute for economic growth? How do we reform our rate system so it's rigged in favor of the town centers and high streets rather than against them? But the online giants? Our planning system is archaic. How do we create a national planning agency so we can try in half the time it takes for a planning application because we are competing with the world where investment goes and we want the investment to come to Scotland. Our skill system, we are not creating the talent supply chain for our economy. So how do we partner business with colleges and universities so we do have that supply chain of businesses? How do we have a transport system that works and inspires growth, regional economic development is a huge part of what's working in London, it's working in Manchester. We don't do regional economic development in Scotland. Instead we treat Scotland as if it's one big homogenous bloc, when the reality is the economic model for the islands and the islands is very different to Glasgow and the west of Scotland. Our enterprise agencies are huge, but we're spending on wage bills rather than actually investing in good quality businesses that need to be get pushed over the line. We're good at start ups in Scotland, we're not good at scale-ups in Scotland. How do we support those businesses to scale up and to grow? And the final bit, and you actually you both are a good example of this, and you both will know this from your own lived experience and you both travel a lot, is why don't we tap into the soft power of Scotland for economic benefit? Ireland does it brilliantly. It taps into brand Ireland to attract investment, tourism, and opportunity with the rest of the world. Scotland can do the exact same, particularly in the North American market, but much more besides. So I want people to believe 'cause it is Scotland's a great place to visit. It's a great group of people, it's got beautiful landscapes, but I also want big neon signs that say Scotland is also a great place to do busin I said in the introduction that when the general election happened and Labour got that huge landslide, you must have thought we are in a really good place now for the Holyrood election. And yet here you are looking pretty grim, grisly poll figures. And the SNP looking like they're coming back gonna be staying in power after nineteen years. I mean what has happened. Well hope hope you know, maybe. But legit and what has happened that's gone from point A to point B or point C and point B being where you were so frustrated that you felt you had to call for Keir Starmer to go. So I think there's a couple of caveats to put on that first. First of all, this was always going to be a hard election, and is a hard election, but one I still believe we can win. Secondly, if we hadn't won the UK general election, there is no chance we could have even been in contention for this election, because I think the politics of the UK would have been Tories re-elected despite all the scandal and chaos, and I think that would have been a very different approach between the SNP and another Tory government across the UK. But I mean I I remember saying it to uh UK shadow cabinet and then uh very early UK cabinet that the election in Scotland will be much easier if it's a midterm of a popular Labour government rather than the midterm of an unpopular Labour government. So th that is undoubtedly a challenge. I think there are two things in the analysis though that is missing in Westminster, but actually also up here as well, which is undoubtedly a UK Labour government is unpopular. But I think right now that is overpriced in the opinion polls. And at the same time, I think people underestimate how unpopular an SP Scottish Government is. And I think right now that's underpriced in the opinion polls. And my job over the course of the next five weeks or so is to persuade people that let's not pass a judgment on two years of a UK government, let's pass judgment on twenty years of an SNP Scottish government, and this is what we would do differently using the power we have right now by pulling our country together rather than simply dividing it on those constitutional lines. I guess you're very politely skirting around one of the massive things. I'm happy not to be polite, Rory, and don't let me skirt. Tell me what you cut to the chase. I'm happy to cut to the chase. You did call for the Prime Minister Keir Sama to resign, right? I mean that's a big deal for a Labour leader in Scotland. Do you regret doing that? Have you changed your mind? Are you backing off from that? I mean you didn't quite engage with Alistair's question around that. You you didn't lean into it and say, I was right to do so, he needs to go. I could see you wanted a follow-up, Rory. That's why I was letting you back in. Oh thank you. Thank you. I don't recoil from it. And I think people need to understand what I did and why I did it. And there's lots of people I think that think about it on the premise of what it means for the ups and downs of individual Westminster politicians. And I think there's lots of people that think about it in the context of what does it mean for Westminster. But I think they misunderstand one me, but second also um the reality of what's happening in Scotland. I am putting myself in front of the people of Scotland in the next five weeks, looking them in their eye, asking them to put their trust and faith in me. And I think people in Scotland deserve to know what I stand for, what are my values, what am I willing to accept, what are my standards, and whether I will be honest, not just have a private view and say one thing in private and a different thing in public, but will I be honest and what would I do differently? And lots of people have thought about what I said in the context of Westminster. Genuinely I was making it abundantly clear that my first priority and my first loyalty is to my country, Scotland, and frankly, this might sound a bit harsh, I don't really care what people in Westminster think, I only care what people in Scotland think. Yeah, you must care who the Prime Minister is. Of course I do. And it's just so you said you're going to be honest. You're smiling there, Rory, I like your smile. The Rory Stewart smiles out Alistair. Right. So you you wanna be honest, you wanna tell us what you think. So be honest. Tell us what you think about Keir Starmer and why he shouldn't be Prime Minister. Well you've heard what I've said and I made it really you haven't actually said much about that. You sort of you've sort of told us that you stand by your values. What did you say again? I mean I can't actually remember exactly what I said, Rory, and what my view is. And and let me explain why. Let me explain why. Because I had spent weeks in the Scottish Parliament exposing the Queen Elizabeth University Hosp ital scandal, where myself, uh, families impacted, some of them who'd lost loved ones, healthcare professionals who had been bullied and gaslit. We'd spent eight years campaigning to get truth and justice about what was happening at the infections situation at the hospital, and to this day that hospital has not been validated and words verified. And so I was in Parliament making this argument at first minister's questions. And honestly, if that was a hospital anywhere else in the UK, I believe it would be wall to wall news coverage every single day about how this could be allowed to happen. I came out of that parliament and it got doorstepped by the entire Scottish press lobby . And I didn't get a single question about the hospital. I didn't get a single question about the families. Every single question was about Peter Mandelson, the UK Labour government, and the judgment calls and him being appointed as the US ambassador. And honestly, I'm just not willing to defend that. I'm not willing to defend what was someone who shouldn't have even been considered for the job of ambassador, never mind be j Ambassador. And also, I'm not willing to sacrifice Scotland to that kind of argument, to that debate, because who the government in Scotland is, who the first minister is, really matters to us in Scotland because it's our schools, our hospitals, our care homes, our towns, cities, villages, it's our ferries, it's our transport system, it's our local businesses. And I'm not willing to sacrifice any of them because I'm not willing to be open and honest about what's happening across the UK or indeed what needs to happen here in Scotland. Okay. And and as a final one for me, it strikes me that once you've taken that big decision to separate yourself from Star mer , it opens up a lot of opportunity for you to be clear about what you would do in running Scotland, which is different from what Labor's doing in uh England. And it seems to me you haven't taken enough of that opportunity. You've put yourself in a very difficult position where you've said, okay, I'm criticising him about this narrow thing about Mandelson. But your voters are angry about a lot of the stuff that the UK government's doing. So now that you've taken the radical decision to separate yourself, why don't you lay out a radically different Scottish Labour vision in,stead of trying to defend a lot of things that irritate people about what the Labour government's doing in the UK. So first of all, uh look, I'm not doing it to run against a UK Labour government. I'm running against a Scottish SNP government. But where I think I do think we can show and lead by example here in Scotland is we are going to bring down the tax burden in Scotland and demonstrate we can grow our economy and cut tax. We are going to reform our rate system to make sure we're not rigging it against high streets and town centres. But even bigger than that, if you think about the first conversation we had uh when we started this conversation around 45 minutes ago, is we talked about the big challenge around the politics of the right, largely the politics of reform. I honestly believe in Scotland we will demonstrate to the rest of the UK how you can win in the politics of hope and unity, not feed off the politics of despair. And I honestly think we can be an example to the rest of the UK how you can do change by bringing people together, not further dividing people, and also be an example to the rest of the UK that you can do it while telling a positive story about your country. And I think a lot of that's been what's missing since the UK Libra government got elected. Hi, this is Gary Lineker from Goalhangers. The rest is football. This episode is brought to you by Simba Mattresses. We like to get the small details, right? What we eat, getting our steps in, the ro utines we stick to, all to feel better the next day. But when it comes to sleep, most people never question the thing that probably matters most, the mattress they sleep on. Most of us will upgrade our phone every couple of years but keep the same mattress for well over a decade. You wake up tired, blame work, blame getting older, blame staying up for the match, anything except the mattress. Simba hybrid mattresses are designed to tackle the things that get in the way of a good night's sleep. Patented comfort technology keeps you cool when it gets too hot, reduces movement when someone turns over, and gives you the correct support you need through the night. 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Search IG dot com to find out more. IG Trade, invest, progress. Your capital is at risk, ISA rules, tax rules and TNC supply, cashbackers offer for new customs only cannot be used in conjunction with other promotions and offer ends. 5 April 2026 other fees may apply. Security program on spreadsheets. New regulations piling up? An audit dread. It's time for Vanta. Vanta automates security and compliance, brings evidence into one place and cuts audit prep by 82%. Less manual work, clearer visibility, faster deals, zero chaos . Call it compliance or call it calm fliance. Get it? Join the 15,000 companies using Vanta to prove trust. Get started at vanta.com slash calm One of the conventional wisdoms that seems to be getting challenged as we get nearer to this election on may the seventh is a sense that existed over the last few years that Scotland was kind of a bit of immune to the threat of reform. But you look at the polls and reform seemed to be doing reasonably well. Is that because we got that conventional wisdom wrong, or is something changed in the body politic in Scotland that has So I've always had a view, Alistair, that our chattering class in Scotland had a more progressive, left of centre position than what would be the nuts and bolts of if you pull people about priorities and different issues? So people often talk about, you know, the rest of the UK wants to be much more stringent and strict on welfare, whereas Scotland wants to be really generous on welfare. Actually, if you look at polling, it's about two or three percent difference how people view uh the welfare state. Immigration again, people will think oh the rest of the UK they really want to clamp down on immigration. They think immigration is a huge issue. People don't really care about in Scotland. But in actual fact, immigration is now rising as an issue in Scotland. It's probably a top three issue in Scotland now. And actually always, if you look at views on immigration, it was always a two or three percent difference. So I I've always been of a view that we have a chatting class in Scotland that is a bit more left wing than the rest of the UK. But what are challenges? We're not immune to this in Scotland compared to anywhere else. And in some ways, whilst I don't think well I know the SNP and reform aren't of the same political values. I'm not going to pretend they are. I'm not going to pretend that the SNP and reform have a same view when it comes to right wing politics. They don't have the same value system. It'd be churlish to even suggest that they do. But they do have one similar ity. They both play the politics of freedom blame. Both fundamentally have an argument that says identify a problem and point at a group of people or an institution and say it wouldn't be that problem if it wasn't for them over there. The SNP do it by pointing to Westminster or to London or to the UK and saying we've got these problems in Scotland, we wouldn't if only we were away from that lot. And reforms say, look at this problem if, it wasn't for them over there, usually pointing at a community, whether it's by race, religion, and saying we wouldn't have these problems if it wasn't for them over there. Both feed off on us versus them, both feed off a fear and blame. And I'm just done with that kind of politics. And that is, I think, our generational challenge is do we become a country that lets the politics of fear and blame and despair take hold and all the dangers that then poses to our country more broadly, or do we gonna confront it with a positive story about what the challenges are, how we change the country by bringing the country together in the process? And that's what I want to demonstrate we can do in Scotland, and that's what I think is a lesson for a UK Labour Party as well. How on earth have the SP managed to survive? I mean I I admitly I'm not very friendly to them, but I I look at them, you know, even when I'm in Scotland, I think, come on, these guys lost their independence referendum. As you said, Scottish schools are in a pretty big mess. The Scottish economy isn't even doing as well as the pretty lamentable English economy. They had this amazing scandal where their leader and their chief executive ended up with weird stuff to do with the police and motor homes. And they've been in forever. I mean nobody likes insurgents and governments get tired. How on earth can they after umpteen years still be on course to win again. So there's a couple of things on that. One is I always joke that it's it's of often better being lucky than good. And they've been very lucky with lots of circumstances that have happened across the UK and lots of what to campaign against. So, you know, Boris obviously was a contrast to Nicholas Sturgeon through the COVID period, etc. But I think there's a more self-reflective part that we have to be honest about. They kept winning and we kept losing because we weren't good enough. And I set myself that challenge when I took on this job five years ago, when everyone said the Labour Party was dead and it was just a shell when I when I took over five years ago, is how do we get the Labour Party back on its feet, make it worthy of its name, and make it worthy of people's support again? How do you earn people's trust? And we did the hard work to get ourselves back into second place in the Council We did the hard work to win the Rutherland by election when people said we couldn't win. We did the hard work to earn people's trust and to win the general election in Scotland getting a share of the vote that was a ten times increase in share of the vote in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK because we did the hard work and uh won people's trust in twenty twenty-four. We did the hard work to win the Hamilton by-election when people say we were gonna come third, one journalist even We've got to earn people's trust and their support and be good enough to win. And for too long, sadly, in the last twenty years, we've not been Given the complicated electoral system which we which we brought in in nineteen ninety eight partly to make sure that no one party ever had absolute power and that's got very very well. Are you taking responsibility? I was a young boy then, so I was a part of the book. Anyway, that was that was part of the thinking since when the SNP have had quite a lot of power. Which of the parties that are standing this election would you definitively not ever go into coalition with. We're not doing any coalitions, any deals, any stitch ups. Alex Salmon demonstrated actually in two thousand and seven that you can do minority government and the parliament can work. And don't forget, in 2007 he did minority government and he went on to win a majority in 2011. And my intention is to hopefully win the majority of constituencies in this election and to form a minority Labour government. And go back to what devolution was supposed to be about, which was try and find common ground and individual issues to make progress in our country. So why is John Swinney going around the place saying that you and Nigel Farage are I I I hesitate to put this thought into your head, but getting in bed together But you but can I just say that you would never ever ever go into any sort of deal with course not. No. No deals, no coalition, no grubby backgroom stuff. And the reason why I think it's really important is this is a political party in reform that literally spent tens of thousands of pounds on an advert saying that my first loyalty would not be to Scotland, it would be to somewhere else. Today they're launching a billboard campaign claiming that we are being overrun by rubber dingies in Scotland. And also today they've repeated that they're opening to the idea of rerunning that ad in this election campaign. And I just think John Swinney has gone in the matter of a week in this election campaign from starting the first day of the campaign saying they were guaranteed to win, to now saying don't vote Labour in this election because they're going to do some kind of grubby deal with reform, so therefore vote for the SNP again. It's desperate. Our politics needs to be much bigger and better than that. Let's have an argument, debate about how we fix our schools, how we reform our NHS, how we grow Scotland's economy. Let's have that kind of debate. Let's demonstrate the best of Scottish politics rather than this kind of nonsense about Nigel Farage is going to be in bed with me, this and the next thing. The guy's a horror. I won't touch him with a barge pole. I reject his politics. I want him gone. I can't wait till he gets gubbed at the next general election and I hope we start the process of gumingm them in this one. But you're not talking about the SNP in quite that way. I mean I'd be interested in in talking about corruption in the SNP, the behaviour of individual politicians. We talk about Tories sle ace and scandal, but honestly, Alex Salmond, Peter Morel, there's a sense sometimes of a very small, cozy, intimate, weird party where the leader can be married to the chief executive or all kinds of shenanigans going on. Isn't it time that that was called out in this campaign? Yes. And let's be honest, John Swinney has been the architect of much of this. John Swinney wants to pretend that he's now some kind of I think the line he's using is a fresh start. Someone who's been in government for twenty years to claim that he is now the fresh start that our country needs, I think is frankly laughable. But I think there's something a bit more serious at play here. So look how a party operates. Of course, that's a subject of investigation and the facts of that have to be uh to come out. But let's look at how they functioned as a government. It is a government that thinks secrecy, cover up, never taking responsibility, always finding somebody else to blame is the correct path. John Swinney's all his instinct has always been prote ct the party first, do what's right by Scotland second. And I just think that kind of politics again is something I've got no time for. I want to demonstrate that I will put do what's right by Scotland, I'll put Scotland first and that Scotland can do differently than what we have just now. And I'm not going to pretend the SNP's got everything wrong in 20 years, but they've lost their way. They're out of ideas. They're out of energy. And we need a new generation of leadership in Scotland. And that's the that's the positive offer I'll be making to Scots over the course of the next five weeks. I think the danger is that unless we start demonstrating the gains of leadership for this generation of the here and now, that the debate then becomes polarized between whether it's leave the UK or shut down the Parliament and that would be a terrible, terrible place for us to be. So let's demonstrate that devolution can work. And actually let's do the next step of devolution, which is take power out of Holyrood and give it to the regions of Scotland so that different parts of the country can flourish in a similar way that regional devolution has really worked Aaron Powell Would your children go into politics? And what would they say if we put them in the studio and said are you lining up to be the third generation of politicians? Honestly I met your kids, I thought they were very much brighter than you. Undoubtedly. Undoubtedly brighter, better looking, the fool shebang, but I think sacrificing two generations is enough, Rory. Let's not sacrifice a third. Look, the reason why I wouldn't want them to do it, and ultimately I'll obviously always back my kids in what they want to do, but I don't think they'd ever want to do it, and I wouldn't want them to do it. Is for all you'd and I think about fatherhood a lot as as you would. Um and I just think that I know how I had to create a alternative normal for myself when I was growing up. And I know that my kids have to do the same as well, where I've presented and projected an unnormal normal for them. And that comes with burden, comes with some opportunities, no doubt, but it comes with burden and it comes with some levels of hardship, particularly in the current climate of how politics is. So I want to serve my time as first minister, do right by this country, demonstrate we can do politics differently . And then having done that, I want to make sure I'm spending my time nurturing, supporting my kids. And by that time you never know, I might even be a granddad, I can look after them as well. Oh lovely. Um well listen, one thing you mustn't let them do is read Rory's book, 'cause in fact you probably should let them read it, because that means they'd never ever think about going to politics. I think my eldest has read Rory's book. You were chinning my eldest yesterday for his uh dress code, he was he was very upset about that. Was he? By the Stone Island? Maybe not any Honestly, he's uh my eldest I'm not gonna say anything about the other two by the way, but my my eldest is the most calm, sweet, sincere, hardworking uh you can ever imagine. So listen, my last couple of questions. You mentioned the the success of the Irish in the way that they brand Ireland globally and Scotland do does it a bit but not maybe successful. I wanna know why have you never ever ever worn a kilt, given you want to be the first minister of Scotland? And secondly, have you seen my knees point in opposite directions? Nobody's knees look good. Naomi Campbell's knees don't look that good. She's my cousin's, you know. I've never I've never looked, so I wouldn't know the answer to that uh Alistair. So But that would be a powerful thing. A Muslim senior Muslim Scottish politician who may be first minister you couldn't get more Scottish than I think you should do So I've I do tart and truths. Oh, that's what Rory and his friends do at Eaton. I don't have the pink I don't think like Rory though, that's the thing, that's the difference. So I've done tart and truths, obviously tartan waistco, I'll I'll wear Harris tweeds. I've done the tartan tie. But the actual the the reason why I've not so it's funny because um there's been a few occasions where I thought about right I'll wear a kilt, but I've always said so I will wear a kilt for the first time, but I want to wear it when it's something majorly significant. So Scotland in the World Cup. So so post Scotland win the World Cup. I'm that might never wear a kilt then if it's Scotland win the World Cup. So I don't know whether it is post an election or my son's wedding or something like that, but there'll be a kilt, Alistair, and I'll make sure I send you a picture of my knees when it happens. Is Trump and his Scottish connection through his mum is that an asset to Scotland or is it a bit of a you'd rather he's rather So look, I think there is actually an opportunity. So I was I was actually in Storneway this week and I was looking at the relatively new uh cruise liner terminal Making bookings and interested in more stops from American cruise ships than pre the election of Donald Trump. So if there is an opportunity to create that connection for positive tourism opportunities, then why not? I think there's a way of doing it without having to say that you agree with someone's politics. Trevor Burrus Okay, I think it'd be much better if his mother had never left Lewis and the world would have been a much better place it's it's not his mammies fault how he's turned out. I'm a defender of the mammies, by the way. I I wouldn't be half the person I was if it wasn't for my mother. So I will say all the good things about me are because of my mother. All the bad things I take responsibility for myself. Okay, okay. Well somewhere in Punjab your dad'll be listening to this think it cheeky little buggy. Oh no, he knows I prefer my mum to my dad anyway, it's fine. That's an open secret . All right. Well listen, thank you for your time. My pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you, Annas, very much. Thanks for Rory, what do you think of that? Well, look, I like him very much. He came into Parliament with me. I think he's very, very funny, warm, cheeky and person . I mean if the listeners had seen all the shenanigans about you teasing him about being late and him accusing you of chinning him and all this kind of stuff. But I I do fear that not enough that comes across when he's doing his public stuff. I mean, maybe I'd I'd be interested in this, but you know, what I would have thought was massive open goals to lay into the SP and he kept coming back to this line. I'm not gonna say that everything they've done for the last twenty years has been a bad thing. And you know, even Trump, you know, it's not that difficult to say Trump is a blithering idiot and I don't want to have anything to do with him. And he there's something a bit a bit odd about it, particularly in modern politics, to be unable to say very clearly that the parties you're running against are pretty monstrous and that somebody like Tr Trump I mean e there was a lack of um just occasionally I just kept thinking there's it's not quite sound but it's a lack of kind of given how funny and smart he is, just a lack of energy and adjectives and clarity. I it's funny because I was I spent part of today this morning with some friends I know up here who were telling me talking about the election and one of the things they were saying is that they get fed up at the fact that all the parties ever do the SNP talk about themselves and they talk about independence the whole time and all the other parties just attack the SNP. One thing he's definitely doing I talked about talked to this about this to him earlier, is avoiding trying to make this election about remotely about independence because the SNP are trying to do that. I think he's trying to I think that's a deliberate thing of not just being a kind of negative politician. I actually thought he came most alive when you were pushing him on a pro-business agenda and being different from the UK. I thought that's w and I think he's so I think he's trying to be more positive than just sort of sitting around saying the SNP are terrible. And let's be honest, Rory, if he does become First Minister of Scotland, he cannot say Trump's a blithering idiot. I'm sorry, he just can't. That is not you but we're back to our Sanchez argument. Labour cannot be like Sanchez and the rhetoric. You and I can, but I think if you're the first minister Scott, you've got to be a little bit careful. Well okay but when it comes to Alex Salmond and Peter Morel and the scandals in the SMP, I think he could be pretty clear about that. I mean I I didn't really see that he'd suffer much saying, Listen, it's pretty pathetic, they're pretty incompetent. It's a bit of a disgrace. I mean why is he being quite so polite about the party he's running against. I think he would think he's not being that polite. I think he keeps saying the country's th they've they failed the country, they've lost their way, we need to replace them. I think he's trying to do a positive campaign, which normally I think you would applaud. I love the business stuff. I love the business stuff. But maybe there's a balance here. I think that he could find a few crisp, funny, brutal lines about his opposition. Yeah. Which would get you laughing, which you'd remember. I mean can you can you remember any of his lines about the S Ur that's the only one. They've lost their way. They've lost their way. Yeah. The most positive stuff I thought was lovely. I'm all all for him on business and I I think that's hugely important and it's great to see somebody in British politics making old fashioned arguments about entrepreneurs and business people and saying. I just I just no, I was just so many of the American politicians we've interviewed recently seem to be just, you know, from Gavin Newsom onwards, just much more colourful and relaxed and And British politics still seems a bit cautious and cramped. cautious than cramped and he's very very colourful and he's very very um I kind of see what he's trying to do I think which is you could spend all your time whacking the SNP and and the SNP seems to me up here fighting a pretty strong base campaign at the moment, which is why they do keep going on about independence. But I think that and and and yes, you can attack the record, but I think he's trying to answer that question. And it's interesting, he goes one step further, he actually says , we can't just criticize the SNP. We have to look at ourselves for not having been able to beat them. So I think it's genuinely trying to do this a little bit differently and fight a fight a positive campaign. I think the worry I have from a Labour perspective, is that the campaign's not going to be long enough to get him to get him through to the public in a way that I think if he could get through to the public, I think he'd be very, very popular. Is there maybe something I'm missing about the way that people think about the S and P. I mean, for example, look La Labour doesn't run campaigns against the Tories in a general election in Britain saying, I'm not going to pretend that everything the Tories have done for the last twenty years is wrong. Uh they you know, they go for the jugular. They're incredibly clear about you know what a disgrace they are and why they need to be booted out. Is it that actually he senses there's a huge amount of residual sympathy for the SNP and people don't really see them as bad people and therefore he can't really he you can't do what Labour would naturally do to the Tories. No, I think it's more that he is trying to project a sense of positivity about himself, about Labour and about Scotland. I think the reason that ultimately and you know, we discussed it on the podcast at the time, I thought it was a very big call, as you said, to go for to call for Keir Starmer to resign. But I think that was his kind of breakpoint. And it's you know, the SNP were all ready to go with posters that basically said, you know, Anna Sawar is Keystarmer's money in Scotland because they were going to capitalize on this sense that Labour's not as popular as they were when they when they were first elected. So I think he's trying to be positive about himself, his own personality, his own character, try to put a more positive vision for what the Labour Party stands for, which is where I agree with you. I think the business thing is very, very important. And probably saying to himself, it's dead easy to track the SNP, but every minute I'm doing that, I'm not telling people why we're the alternative. And I think it's why Labour is the alternative that is the hardest, the hardest battle Okay. Well m maybe my final thing would just be it's not a question of time, it might just be a question of two or three more memorable crisp phrases and adjectives and metaphors and bit of way of making people wake up, you know, telling