The Scotsman Bulletin Monday April 15 2024 #Iran #Israel
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin. For Monday, I'm Alan Young. I'm
00:13Deputy Editor of The Scotsman. I'm joined today by our political correspondent Rachel
00:18Emery to talk through the main headlines. Hi, Rachel.
00:21Good morning.
00:23Let's have a look at the front page today. Like pretty much every other paper, we lead
00:30on the fallout after those unprecedented Iranian drone attacks on Israel. Our line there is
00:39Rishi Sunak calling for calm heads. That is amid fears of a major escalation in the Middle
00:47East. We'll come on to talk to Rachel about that in a minute. We obviously wrap up the
00:55weekend's sporting action at the top of the page there on the shock defeat for Rangers
01:01in the title race to Ross County. And our columnist Brian Monteith considers what's
01:07next for Hamza Yousaf as Parliament returns this week. So, Rachel, Israel and Iran is
01:16clearly the story that is dominating everywhere this morning. We have heard from the UK Foreign
01:24Secretary doing the media rounds. What's he been saying?
01:28Yes, it's a very fast moving story after what happened over the weekend. I was working at
01:33the weekend and it very much was a story that dominated everybody's day, I think, in journalism.
01:38Yes, David Cameron, the Foreign Secretary, has been out on television and radio stations this
01:42morning commenting on this. He's basically wanting to try and just calm everything down
01:48in the Middle East. He's urging Iran to sort of think with their head, not their heart here,
01:52because I think this is one of the biggest fears people have had with this conflict,
01:55is that it does spill over into one of the sort of players like Iran here. So he's made
02:00some comments here about this morning, just basically wanting to calm things down and sort
02:04of try and urge those in the Middle East to sort of keep things nice and calm at the moment, which,
02:09as we know, has not been calm for a number of months now. So we've also heard from the UN
02:14Security Resolution Council. They overnight have again been trying to urge the players in the
02:19Middle East to not go into an all-out war and to sort of try and de-escalate tensions as much as
02:24possible. But it's a very sort of uncertain situation at the moment. And we are expecting
02:29a statement in the House of Commons later on today about this. I expect that will be with
02:33Prime Minister Rishi Sunak because David Cameron, he believes the Foreign Secretary, is in the House
02:39of Lords, so he can't be coming through to the Commons to make a statement. So we're expecting
02:42it to be Rishi Sunak. He did make a statement yesterday after all this news to confirm the RAF
02:48Typhoon Vytautas were used in this attack on Saturday night and successfully shot down some
02:54Iranian missiles. So he has made the statement already, but I think now that Parliament's back
02:59after this recess, MPs are wanting to put more questions to and hear directly from him in the
03:04House of Commons as well. Indeed, and the story is certain to develop today, as you say. But
03:12away from that, and in Scottish politics, the Scottish Parliament's not back until tomorrow,
03:17probably, but the big event today is actually happening in Dundee, where Anas Sarwar is heading
03:23to the STUC, as you are, I believe. Yes, this is the Scottish Trade Union's Congress. They're
03:31having their annual conference today in the Caird Hall in Dundee. I'm about to head off to go and
03:36visit that myself. The headline speaker today is Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader,
03:41and his speech has already been trailed in our paper today, which you can have a read off,
03:44and on our website. But basically he's trying to say that Labour would protect workers' rights
03:50if they win the next general election, which we believe they will.
03:56And then tomorrow you'll be followed by the First Minister.
04:01Yes, Humza Yousaf is the big speaker tomorrow at the STUC conference as well. I expect both
04:07Anas Sarwar and Humza Yousaf will use their speeches to basically set out their election
04:13campaign. This is an election year. Both of those leaders will be wanting trade unions
04:19to back them and trade unions to give them their vote. So I think both of them will very much be
04:23using this as a platform to set out their election campaign and try and convince some of the voters
04:28in the trade unions to vote for them in the election. Interesting. Thanks very much, Rachel.
04:34We'll read all about what happens there today. Later on, it will be at scotsman.com. If you're
04:40on the site, please do subscribe if you can, then you will not miss a thing. And if you're out and
04:47about today, it's lovely sunshine in Edinburgh. Please do pick up a copy of the paper from me
04:53and from Rachel. It's bye for now.