Political Editor Alistair Grant and Political Correspondent Rachel Amery at The Scottish Conservative Conference in Aberdeen
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Hello.
00:05 I'm Alistair Grant, the political editor of The Scotsman.
00:07 And I'm joined by Rachel Aimery, The Scotsman's
00:09 political correspondent.
00:10 And we're here in Aberdeen for the Scottish Conservative Party
00:14 Conference.
00:14 I interviewed Scottish Conservative leader Douglas
00:16 Ross for today's paper.
00:18 You can also watch the video online and listen to it
00:21 in podcast form on the Steamie, The Scotsman's politics
00:24 podcast.
00:25 I asked him about the upcoming general election,
00:27 about his party's polling rates, his own popularity ratings,
00:32 which aren't perhaps as good as he would like them to be.
00:35 And he also spoke about the threats and intimidation
00:38 facing politicians today.
00:40 And was quite candid, actually, about the impact
00:42 that's had on him and his family.
00:44 So you can check that out on The Scotsman's website right now.
00:47 But Rachel, we're obviously at the Scottish Conservative Party
00:50 Conference.
00:51 What do you think of the Scottish Tories standing
00:53 in Scottish politics at the moment?
00:55 Is there a lot for Douglas Ross to worry about?
00:57 Potentially.
00:58 We've got a new poll out this morning, actually,
01:00 which sort of suggests that not only are the Conservatives going
01:03 to fall into the third most popular party in Scotland,
01:06 that it's also going to be quite a big drop as well,
01:08 potentially, for them.
01:09 Traditionally, the Conservatives have enjoyed popularity
01:12 in areas like the North East, where we are right now
01:14 in Aberdeen.
01:14 But this new poll is suggesting that actually Labour
01:17 and the SNP are streets ahead, even
01:19 in this part of the country.
01:20 So there's a lot for the party to think about and see
01:23 if the seven MPs going into this election,
01:25 will they come back with seven seats as well or more?
01:27 It's going to be a big challenge for this election, isn't it?
01:30 Yeah.
01:30 And of course, we're in the North East, which is traditionally
01:32 an area that the Tories would want
01:33 to perform quite strongly in.
01:35 Expecting quite a strong line of oil and gas
01:37 out of this conference.
01:38 It's something that's been in the media quite a lot recently.
01:41 We've had Humza Yousaf, the First Minister,
01:43 very much trying to be a bit more positive
01:45 about the future of the North Sea in terms
01:47 of his relationship with oil and gas companies,
01:49 also emphasising the need for that just transition
01:52 to green energy.
01:53 But this is something the Tories are very--
01:55 they have quite strong messaging on.
01:57 They say that Labour and the SNP are essentially
02:00 betraying the North Sea sector.
02:02 But what do you think will come out
02:03 of this conference in terms of North Sea and oil and gas?
02:06 Well, if you look at the conference agenda,
02:08 there's already a lot of fringe events, exhibition spaces
02:11 as well, all about the oil and gas and renewable industry.
02:14 Additionally, that has been a very big talking point
02:16 for the Conservatives here.
02:17 So I'd imagine that will continue
02:18 to be so for this conference here.
02:20 Why pick Aberdeen as your venue without making
02:22 use of what their big party policy is here
02:25 in the North East?
02:26 So absolutely.
02:27 I think it will feature very heavily.
02:28 So we'll have to see what comes, of course, across the day.
02:31 We're having speeches from Douglas Ross, the party leader.
02:33 And Deputy Leader Megan Gallacher,
02:34 she's speaking as well.
02:35 I think she's actually introducing
02:37 all the candidates for this election too,
02:38 as later on today.
02:40 And I believe Prime Minister Reshu Sunak is also
02:42 going to be coming in as well to make a speech too.
02:44 I imagine oil and gas will also feature in all of their speeches
02:46 I've actually.
02:47 Yeah, and I think Reshu Sunak's trail, actually,
02:49 that was in a lot of the newspapers this morning,
02:50 was focusing on oil and gas.
02:52 I believe he is now in Aberdeen.
02:53 I think there was photos of his plane touching down
02:55 at Aberdeen Airport this morning.
02:57 But speaking to Douglas Ross, he was very clear
02:59 that the Tories want to make gains
03:01 going into this general election.
03:02 Of course, he would say that.
03:04 He's the party leader, and he's not going to say anything else.
03:06 How likely do you think that is?
03:08 You've obviously got seven MPs at the moment
03:10 following the defection of Lisa Cameron from the SNP.
03:13 Do you think they're likely to make gains across Scotland?
03:16 I think one of the big things they're going to need to do
03:18 is the UK Conservative Party as a whole,
03:20 their popularity rating has gone way down because of Boris Johnson
03:24 and Liz Truss, for example.
03:26 Can the Scottish Conservatives keep enough back from them?
03:29 Can they distance themselves enough
03:31 to still be seen as a separate entity from them?
03:33 That's a big question there.
03:35 I think another thing is we're very much
03:36 seeing this general election as a two-horse race
03:38 between the SNP and Labour.
03:39 But the seats for the Conservatives do have,
03:41 right now, it's perhaps not going to be that race.
03:44 They're still big players in those few seats they do have.
03:48 So perhaps the narrative that we're
03:49 looking at the rest of the country
03:50 won't play out in the seats the Conservatives might win.
03:53 So there is obviously still a chance
03:54 that they could still get as many seats as they do,
03:57 even though the course of the election is on the other parties.
03:59 Yeah, and I think there's obviously
04:00 a risk of them being almost kind of squeezed out
04:02 the narrative of the election.
04:03 Because as you say, there's very much
04:05 that kind of story of the rise of Labour across the UK.
04:08 And in Scotland, it's very much a story
04:09 about Labour and the SNP facing off against each other,
04:13 particularly in the central belt.
04:14 For the Tories, I think it'll be quite difficult to cut through
04:16 and to particularly--
04:18 I mean, just finally, I suppose one of the issues that will be--
04:20 that they will want to highlight,
04:22 but has maybe changed in recent years,
04:23 is the Constitution and the independence issue.
04:26 In past elections, the Tories have always
04:27 been quite keen to fight it as a kind of--
04:31 almost like a mini referendum on the constitutional issue
04:34 of the SNP on one side and the Tories
04:36 saying that they are the strongest unionist party.
04:39 As independence has been kind of taken off the table
04:41 a little bit, at least for the immediate future,
04:43 that's sort of changed.
04:44 Yes, I think the Conservatives, when
04:45 they're campaigning for this general election,
04:47 they need to be a bit careful about that.
04:49 In the past few elections, they very much
04:50 relied on the unionist vote, trying to get people across
04:53 by saying, we're the ones who don't want independence.
04:56 However, I think independence is still
04:58 a big issue for a lot of people.
04:59 We know when we're looking at polls
05:00 that support for independence is still around 50%.
05:04 But when we look at how important that is,
05:06 in terms of key issues for the election, it's now gone down.
05:09 Things like the cost of living crisis,
05:10 the state of the economy, employment, for example,
05:13 those things have now taken over independence.
05:15 Those are the things that voters are now more concerned
05:18 about than independence.
05:19 So the Conservatives do need to be careful to just not
05:21 rely too heavily on that message of unionism
05:24 when it comes to this election.
05:25 Yeah, well, I'm sure there'll be lots
05:26 to talk about over the course of the weekend.
05:28 We're here today and Saturday as well, as we said,
05:31 looking to hear from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, but also
05:33 Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader.
05:36 I'm sure they'll have lots to talk about.
05:39 (upbeat music)
05:41 (upbeat music)