Alexander Brown gives comment on the First Minister in London.
Humza Yousaf has delivered a speech from London on Tuesday attacking both the Labour party and the Conservatives over Brexit.
The First Minister’s trip prompted a few raised eyebrows from UK government officials, who wondered what exactly the point was. Having seen the original trail of the speech, they suggested it was no different than comments Mr Yousaf had made previously, and asked why this wasn’t an address to give in Scotland.
Humza Yousaf has delivered a speech from London on Tuesday attacking both the Labour party and the Conservatives over Brexit.
The First Minister’s trip prompted a few raised eyebrows from UK government officials, who wondered what exactly the point was. Having seen the original trail of the speech, they suggested it was no different than comments Mr Yousaf had made previously, and asked why this wasn’t an address to give in Scotland.
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NewsTranscript
00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 Hello, my name is Alexander Brown.
00:09 I'm the Scotsman's Westminster correspondent.
00:11 And I'm here outside the London School of Economics,
00:14 where we have just heard from the First Minister, Humza Yousaf.
00:17 He delivered a speech where he talked about how
00:19 to grow Scotland's economy.
00:21 And he talked about Brexit and austerity and the damage
00:24 they have done to Scotland's economy.
00:26 He said if Scotland remained a part of the EU,
00:28 it would have 1.6 billion pounds more
00:30 in the public purse, which is questionable figures.
00:33 But those are the figures that he chose to go with.
00:35 He talked about the two child cap.
00:37 And if Scotland wasn't a member of the UK,
00:39 that would be something he would abolish.
00:41 And he wanted basically to pitch Scotland
00:43 as a more progressive country, with more progressive politics
00:46 than that of its UK counterparts.
00:48 He was also asked in the Q&A after,
00:50 in which he only accepted questions from broadcasters.
00:53 There were no questions for print journalists.
00:56 I think the most notable line was he was asked
00:57 about corporation tax in Ireland,
00:59 because he had referenced Ireland as an inspiration.
01:02 And he was asked about corporation tax.
01:04 And he said we will all consider all ways and measures
01:07 of taxation, which is not saying no.
01:09 So that seems to me like the First Minister
01:11 was hinting corporation tax being lowered
01:14 would be something he would consider
01:17 in an independent Scotland.
01:18 He was also asked about drugs.
01:19 And he said that with the terrible new statistic being
01:22 published about drug deaths, and he
01:24 said that he was sorry for every family
01:25 member who'd lost someone.
01:27 He was asked about freezing funding on drugs and alcohol
01:30 to stop addictions.
01:31 And he said he wasn't going to get drawn into conversation
01:34 about previous funding, which is quite a thing to do when that
01:37 might be relevant to why drug deaths have risen yet again
01:41 in Scotland.
01:42 He was also asked about the Islamophobia and racism
01:46 row in the Tory party after the disgusting comments made
01:48 about Diana Abbott.
01:50 And he said the Tory party is institutively Islamophobic.
01:53 He said that he stood in full solidarity with Diana Abbott.
01:56 And he raised the point that no senior conservatives had come
01:59 out to condemn those comments and say how terrible they were,
02:03 especially Rishi Sunak, who you would think
02:05 would be able to say so.
02:06 For all this and more, I'll be writing this up very shortly.
02:09 You'll be able to read all the details on scottsman.com.
02:11 Thank you so much.
02:12 [MUSIC PLAYING]
02:15 (upbeat music)
02:18 [MUSIC]