Owen Thompson at the lobby football match

Alexander Brown interviews Owen Thompson at the lobby football match

Transcript

00:00 Hello, my name is Alexander Brown, I'm the Scotsman's Westminster correspondent and I'm

00:08 joined by SNP MP Erwin Thompson during the MP Lobby football game. How is the school,

00:14 how's the game going?

00:15 Well, it's I think it could be called fake news. The Lobby are winning. There's a few

00:22 disputed goals. I think it's 2-3, 3-4-1 maybe.

00:26 It's 4-1 to the Lobby.

00:27 At the moment. There's still time for a comeback.

00:30 We won't say how many I've scored, it's none. Oh, it was almost 5-1. That's the wonders

00:37 of live football. In fact, let's turn slightly and we'll do a talk while we have this corner

00:42 just in case something happens, which is exciting. So, can you tell people what this game is

00:46 about?

00:47 Yeah, so pretty much once a year we try to get the Parliament team who play every so

00:52 often usually raising funds for charity, raising awareness for charities at times in the morning

00:58 before Parliament sits. So once a year we have a game against the Lobby, which is always

01:01 friendly. There are no grudges being settled anywhere on the pitch. But no, I mean it's

01:07 all good and it helps to support what the good causes that the Parliament team play

01:12 for.

01:13 And this is a team of lots of different MPs. Is it a collegiate atmosphere or is there

01:18 a clique? Because I have to say the SNP representation here is, I would say, over-proportionate given

01:23 the lack of Labour MPs today.

01:25 There's two of us. No, I mean, there's always a variety of MPs who play in the games. It's

01:32 not always the same folk because Parliament gets in the way and we actually have jobs

01:36 to do and sometimes you simply just can't make the games. So it's good when we can to

01:40 get a run out every so often. And it's always good when... It's always a friendly atmosphere.

01:44 I think regardless of who's in your team or who you're playing against, it's pretty much

01:48 always a friendly game. And it's a good way to have a bit of fun.

01:52 And with that we're off to have a scrap over a decision. Thank you so much for watching

01:56 Up the Lobby.

01:58 [Music]

02:04 [BLANK_AUDIO]