The Steamie talk General Election
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Politics vodcast
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00:00 [Music]
00:08 Hello and welcome to this TV, the Scotsman's Politics podcast
00:11 and a general election has been called. The optics, let's be honest, were not great.
00:15 Rishi Sunak announced the general election will take place on July the 4th while drenched in rain
00:20 outside Downing Street, his words sometimes drowned out by a nearby sound system blasting
00:26 out 'things can only get better', the classic club hit forever associated with Labour's 1997
00:32 election victory. Why did he do it? Why not wait till later in the year? And why did he not use
00:37 a sodding umbrella to pour over these questions and more? And I hope you're noticing the sheer
00:42 number of water-based puns I'm sprinkling into this. I'm joined by Rachel Amery, the Scotsman's
00:48 political correspondent, sorry, Rachel Amery, the Scotsman's political correspondent and Alexander
00:53 Brown, the Scotsman's man in Westminster. Alex, put us out of our misery, what on earth is the
00:59 logic to this? And I should say that we're already on the road today, Rachel's about to head up north
01:03 for an event with Rishi Sunak, I am obviously out and about as well, so this is very much
01:08 general election period has started. Why has he done it, Alex?
01:12 I mean that's the million dollar question. I mean the simple answer is, he's kind of given up.
01:19 There was an argument among some of his MPs and I believe in some of the Tory party that
01:25 if he waited, the economic picture would get better. There could be space with an improved
01:31 economic picture to give £10 billion of tax cuts later on in the year so they could go into the
01:36 election going, look, we're going to save you money. However, the economic forecast is so grim,
01:42 the Treasury has said that it's so impossible, but essentially he's looked at it and thought,
01:47 I mean, what can I do? It is the case that the inflation figures are better now,
01:52 having reached the target of 2% and if he goes now, it's a chance to seize the initiative and
01:58 kind of say, look, we're doing it on my terms, I'm ready to go, the economy is improving,
02:04 we've got a plan. If he'd waited, I think the belief is things would not get better and it's
02:09 worth remembering that there's cuts to government budgets that have been deferred, I think, until
02:15 May and until after the next recess in previous budgets. So there would be less spending for
02:21 departments, there would be less money to deliver tax cuts and I think there's no positives on the
02:28 horizon for Shishunac, so going now at least gives them the element of surprise. And Rachel, I mean,
02:34 obviously this is not that convenient for many people in Scotland. A lot of the Scottish school
02:39 holidays, for example, in Edinburgh where I am, Glasgow, I'm sure many other parts of the country
02:43 the same, I think Dundee is as well, the Scottish school holidays start at the end of June, so the
02:48 risk is that a lot of people in Scotland will be away in their holidays when this general election
02:53 happens and presumably will have to arrange postal votes. Yes, logistically it's not a great date for
03:00 Scotland. First Minister John Swinney has already come out saying that it's disrespectful to Scotland
03:06 because the Scottish holidays haven't been considered here. Not every part of Scotland
03:11 is on their holidays. I think Aberdeen, Aberdeenshire might still be at school at this point, but for the
03:15 majority of Scots they are away on holiday and obviously that is when the majority of families
03:20 also book their holidays, whether it's a holiday elsewhere in the UK or a holiday abroad, that tends
03:25 to be when they go away. I know that myself, like half my friends are away, my parents are away,
03:31 there are so many folk on holiday then, so I think a lot of people are going to have to rely on postal
03:37 votes. Anyone can apply for postal vote, you don't have to have any special criteria, anyone who's
03:43 eligible to vote can get a postal vote and to do that you need to apply on the UK Government website
03:48 or you can go into your local council office and ask them for help on how to do it offline.
03:52 But one thing that's interesting is you need to have an ID and proof of your address, things that
03:57 you probably think you would need, but you also need a photograph of your handwritten signature
04:02 to prove as well who you are, so that's something that also needs to be taken into account if you're
04:07 going to do a postal vote. You can also do a proxy vote though, so if there's somebody you trust to
04:12 go in your stead at the polling day, you can also get them to do it for you. Again it'd be through
04:18 the UK Government website to apply for that or through your local council office to apply for it,
04:23 but you need to do that quite quickly, you can't wait until polling day to decide that you want a
04:27 postal vote, you've got to get it in now. I think the 18th of June has been mooted as one of the
04:32 deadline days, so yeah get it in nice and quickly if you can. Yeah I should say as well, sorry there's
04:40 a bit of background noise in this, as I say I'm not in the office at the moment, doing this from
04:45 a phone, so just bear with us. Alex, obviously the Tories are well behind in the polls at the moment,
04:51 Labour widely expected to win this election, Keir Starmer widely expected to become the next Prime
04:56 Minister. Can the Tories turn things around or are they just looking at mitigating their losses as
05:03 much as possible? Well in the question of whether they can turn it around, probably why so many MPs
05:08 were unhappy, Tory MPs, and wanted things to go longer. They thought with more time the economic
05:14 forecast could improve or Labour would simply make a mistake. They've been crossing their
05:18 fingers and praying for a Labour scandal or for the idea that Labour's finances and lack of a plan
05:25 in their own words would cut through. And it's worth noting that some Tories are so annoyed
05:30 about this. Esther McVey was one of several Ministers to really argue against this privately
05:34 in the Cabinet, and we know that some Tories have even written letters of no confidence,
05:39 because essentially they are such brilliant minds, they think if they stop the Prime Minister they
05:43 could replace him and then do the election just a bit later and that would change people's view
05:48 of a party that has delivered the mini-budget, that would change things. So it's really difficult,
05:54 the idea that, the issue with Labour is that they're very much on the Tory lawns. When you
06:01 listen to speeches by, I mean I think it was last week we had this relaunch from Keir Starmer,
06:05 and you listen to his language, and it's the language of David Cameron, it's the language
06:09 of George Osborne, it's about being fiscally prudent, it's about sound economic management,
06:14 which for so long has been the Conservative bread and butter. And the problem is, unlike in 2017,
06:20 Labour is not just going for the radical left-wing vote, it's not saying it's going to radically
06:25 change the country, and it's not, for better or worse, not inspiring people, but at the same time
06:31 it is just taking votes from Conservatives, it is making small 'c' arguments. I mean we even have
06:37 the soon-to-be perhaps Foreign Secretary David Lammy saying he was a small 'c' Conservative,
06:44 so it's very hard to see where that territory is. The Tories have really tried to cut through with
06:50 Labour having got a plan, and Labour have got these unfunded pledges, but Labour insist everything
06:56 is fully costed, and I also think it's really difficult for the Conservatives to make an
07:00 argument that Labour can't be trusted with the economy after the mini-budget, after announcing
07:05 national insurance tax cuts, which mean huge cuts to government departments, and public service is
07:12 going to get worse. So it's really difficult to see where there is any wiggle room. All they can
07:17 hope is perhaps maybe the Angela Rayner scandal, which they've been so desperately trying to make
07:22 happen, if anything came of that. But yeah, I mean I would be absolutely astonished.
07:27 And just, I mean you touched on this a little bit there, but what is Labour's strategy? Is it
07:32 purely to point out how bad they would say the Tories have been, and just to repeat the word
07:37 'change' over and over again, to hammer home the fact that they are the other option, essentially,
07:43 or do they have something more concrete than that? Well I think, I mean one of the great
07:48 criticisms of Keir Starmer, right, is that he's really boring, and that worked for a bit, and
07:52 then people started to kind of go 'well actually, politics has been so awful, I don't mind a bit of
07:57 boring, I don't mind someone who I can just kind of think, you know, they'll get on with it'.
08:01 And that's kind of where Labour is. It was really interesting listening to the two
08:05 rhetorics yesterday, I mean Richard Sunak was essentially saying Labour will make the world
08:11 more dangerous, Labour can't be trusted with the economy, and they also are a security risk,
08:15 you can only really trust us. Whereas the Labour argument is again also making the same
08:21 economic stability, sound management of the economy, but it's also talking about hope,
08:25 it was about ending the chaos, it was about restoring trust in politics, and also kind of,
08:32 I think it was unlocking the pride and potential of Britain, which sounds incredibly silly, and as
08:38 I say it, I find myself putting my thumbs on my hands like a politician, you know, 'call app Britain',
08:43 but I mean it's that argument, it's this idea that things won't get better immediately, they
08:49 can't radically undo the damage to the economy, but they can through stuff like the new working
08:54 deal, through GEB Energy, they can take steps in the right direction to have a quick, or at
09:00 least have a long-term impact even, on people's lives, and do things that will make the country
09:06 better in the long run, rather than saying 'oh they're dangerous', which is a Tory argument,
09:11 it's all negative, they're bad, we can be trusted. Labour's a bit more, we've all had enough of this,
09:16 we're just going to get on with the job and we'll make things better for you, we promise.
09:20 Which is, you know, after the last however many years it's been, not that unappealing an offer.
09:25 And Rachel, you're about to jump in the car, drive up north to an event with Rishi Sunak
09:31 and Scottish Tory leader Douglas Ross. What do you think Rishi Sunak's message will be
09:36 in Scotland? Because strangely enough, Scotland is an area where the Tories could do okay,
09:42 comparatively, to where they are now. Yes, this election wipeout that is most probably going to
09:48 happen on the UK scale might not happen in Scotland. So there are seven Conservative MPs in
09:53 Scotland, six seats won at the last election, plus one defection, and they could very well win six
10:01 again. They've got very strong support in the North East and in the South West, and those look
10:07 like that might continue. So it's a case of like, can they remove the Scottish MPs enough from
10:12 Partygate and the mini-budget and things like that? Can they separate themselves enough from that
10:17 to say we're standing up for Scotland? So that could potentially happen, but of course we are
10:22 talking very low numbers here. The big story on the night of course is going to be who's going
10:27 to get the most seats. Is it going to be the SNP or is it going to be Labour? Now the latest polling
10:32 came out earlier this week from YouGov, suggests that SNP could go down to as little as 11 seats,
10:37 which would be disastrous for the SNP. But given that John Swinney's opening the door, that can get
10:43 turned around very, very quickly, but he needs to get going now if he's going to do that. He can't
10:48 be hanging around, he's really got to get on the campaigning right now if he's going to change that
10:52 fortune around. Labour on the other hand, as Alex was saying, they've been asking for an election
10:58 for a very long time, they're very, very confident. And I think Scottish Labour are feeling similarly
11:02 confident, particularly in the central belt areas. So yeah, they're all set and all ready to go for
11:09 their campaigning at the moment. But the Conservatives, yeah, small numbers compared
11:13 to what we're talking about with the SNP and the Labour Party. And Alex, what's it feeling like
11:18 among SNP MPs? Because it's worth kind of talking about this a bit. The poll's not looking good for
11:22 them. Rachel obviously mentioned in a recent poll that had them down to 11 MPs. In Scotland, that
11:28 would not be a good showing for them at all. John Swinney is just in the door. I think the SNP would
11:32 have wanted a bit longer for him to bed in, for him to kind of get his message across to the public.
11:38 Are SNP MPs looking at this July general election with a sense of foreboding?
11:44 Well, I mean, it depends who you speak to. Some of them will probably say, look, I'm probably going
11:50 to lose my seat. It's really rubbish. I wish we'd been better. And I'm already thinking about my
11:56 holiday. Others will say to you, well, you know, the problem is, the thing is for Labour, Keir Starmer
12:03 is not very popular in Scotland. Keir Starmer can't be trusted in Scotland. And no one will
12:07 really believe Keir Starmer when he says anything. The issue with that is all the polling suggests
12:12 otherwise. So I think there is a genuine split between this issue will come back to bite them,
12:18 which is what some of them think, and complete denial. I mean, genuine, complete denial.
12:24 I speak to SNP MPs who, you know, off the record, I'm not even writing on it, just for background,
12:30 you know, we talk to people, sometimes they say stuff that we can use, and other times,
12:34 just for our own understanding about what they're thinking. And they genuinely just think that
12:39 everything is fine. And that when push comes to shove, only the SNP can represent the people of
12:46 Scotland and stand up for Scotland, which is absolutely deluded beyond belief. And I think
12:53 it's really interesting when you look at Labour's target seats, I think of the top 100, I think it's
12:59 13 or 14 of them are SNP seats, and a lot more of them, and the ones after 100 are still, you know,
13:07 we're talking less than 10 or 11% swings needed, which is not that far off what the swing is
13:13 expected to be. So it's, you know, a little bit of denial, a little bit of dejection. But not,
13:25 not the rallying cry that we've got this, or, you know, this is how we deal with Labour, because I'm
13:30 sure you've been doing the same I feel like for the past year of Labour's ascension in Scotland,
13:35 and the polling improving. I've been trying to ask SNP MPs, what's the plan for Labour? What's
13:40 the plan for Labour? And they just kind of behaved as if Keir Starmer was this issue that was just
13:44 going to go away. And the people didn't like him and that the party, you know, he couldn't be
13:48 trusted. But even if they don't like him, and even if, you know, he has abandoned some of his
13:53 pledges, which he has, that doesn't seem to be a problem. So it's, it's remarkable. It's one of
13:58 the most astonishing conversations to be having with people.
14:03 And Rachel, I mean, obviously, we mentioned the John Swinney's fairly new in the door, that
14:07 recent poll was took place, the fieldwork took place after he'd come in as SNP leader and First
14:12 Minister. What do you think his message will be through this kind of campaign period, the next
14:18 six weeks? I think he's gonna, I mean, he's obviously had very strong measures in the economy
14:22 so far, he seems to be trying to major in the fact that he's perceived to be the safe pair of hands.
14:26 He's obviously, you know, a long standing finance secretary. He's someone that
14:32 he's almost, I don't want to make the comparison too much, but he's almost doing that kind of
14:36 Keir Starmer thing of trading on the fact that he's quite dull, but using that as like,
14:40 as a plus point. And I think, you know, to be fair, that does, in an era of, you know,
14:47 political upheaval, we've had a lot of chaotic scenes over the last few years.
14:50 There's maybe a lot to be said for that. But what do you think his key messages will be?
14:54 Yes, I think when it comes to the economy, it's where he's comfortable. He comes from a banking
14:59 background, he was finance secretary, and very similar story for his deputy First Minister,
15:05 Kate Forbes, as well. So I think we're going to hear a lot more of sort of these sort of safer,
15:10 let's get stability back into how things are working in Scotland. I think we're definitely
15:15 hear a lot of that. But it's going to be a very careful balancing game that's going to have to
15:19 be played when it comes to independence. Because in support for independence in Scotland is still
15:24 around the 50% mark, it's still of interest to people, people still care about it. The problem
15:30 is, it's no longer the top priority for people in this election. People are more concerned about
15:36 the cost of living crisis, about inflation, about NHS waiting lists, these things that are now all
15:43 more important to people than independence is. And that's what they're going to be voting on.
15:49 Saying that, the SNP are losing a lot of pro-independence voters to Scottish Labour at
15:54 the moment. So we need to potentially think about how he brings them back on board and has
16:02 this pro-independence message, while also still acknowledging that it's no longer the big story.
16:07 So it's a very careful balancing act that's going to have to be played there.
16:09 And Alex, it's worth kind of talking about as well, the optics of that Rishi Sunak
16:15 announcement yesterday. We're recording this on Thursday. Obviously, he kind of addressed the
16:20 nation, if you want. On Wednesday, he was drenched in rain. As I said earlier, things can only get
16:27 better with what's playing in the background. Presumably, that is not the image that they
16:31 wanted to project when they were announcing a general election.
16:34 Well, that's another reason why some Tory MPs are so angry, because it's just so amateur hour.
16:41 I mean, you're lucky enough not to work in Westminster, where my office room is.
16:45 Every Wednesday is the day that Steve Bray is there. So if you're working on a Wednesday,
16:50 you will hear 'things can only get better'. You'll hear a song about getting the Tories out,
16:55 and you'll hear a few things I think he might have even recorded himself.
16:58 Very loud. And also the Star Wars Imperial March music. Basically, every 10 minutes,
17:02 it's a new one. And they're incredibly loud. And it's always, always on Wednesday. He's never not
17:07 there. We know that someone pays for him to have an incredibly luxurious property near Fulham,
17:13 where he goes to then walks over. So it's so incredibly bad. I mean, the choice of day,
17:20 the choice of weather, I mean, to do it in that weather rather than having control of it,
17:25 is completely baffling. And to go from him and the pouring rain, where you couldn't hear what
17:32 he was saying, to Keir Starmer, Union Jack, and I didn't realise the bar was this low, but
17:39 looking dry, which I now consider statementally, I mean, it was absolutely absurd. He could have
17:44 done it the day after. He could have waited for Pete, he could have done it after Pete,
17:47 the day after PMQs. He could have done it on the Tuesday. It was a baffling decision. And I also
17:53 think not enough, we haven't said enough about the fact that it was kind of happening the whole
17:57 day and no one would talk about it. So in the morning, rumbling start to emerge. And I message
18:03 MPs and I message my contacts who usually, when this sort of thing happens, say, "Oh no, it's
18:09 rubbish." They won't, and they didn't reply. And then so we wait a bit and then you ring. And then
18:14 normally they might answer and say, "Oh, you know, what's up?" Instead, they just rejected the calls.
18:19 So we're suddenly thinking, "Okay, it's definitely going to happen." And this is all before PMQs. So
18:23 we have this whole farce of a PMQ session where everyone kind of knows that something is happening.
18:30 We know that cabinet ministers are flying back and he's being asked if he's calling an election,
18:34 quite directly by Stephen Flynn, the SRP Westminster leader. And he said, "Oh, I'm still
18:39 focused on the second half of the year," which, you know, there's no control of the narrative.
18:44 It's allowed everything to spiral and go, "Well, why would you let it come out like that in the
18:49 first place?" And it's also, and I never thought I'd be referencing or mentioning loose women on
18:54 this show, but he told loose women last week in an appearance, the Prime Minister, that they would be
18:59 completely fine to book their holidays because it would definitely be in the second half of the year.
19:04 And June is still a time that people go on holiday. So it's not just bad optics. He's lied
19:10 to loose women. And for me, that's unforgivable. - I'll say there's something so like annoyingly
19:15 kind of clever, clever about considering July the 4th, the second half of the year,
19:19 like it's only just the second half of the year. And you can just imagine how smug whoever suggested
19:25 that felt about that choice of date. But do we have any theories as to why he didn't use an
19:30 umbrella? I mean, did he think that going out without one was going to be a show of strength,
19:34 or it just seemed kind of baffling that he just stood there getting more and more drenched?
19:39 - I mean, the show of strength thing is not necessarily, I think we can all remember,
19:44 maybe you don't actually, but when England were failed to make, I think it was the Euros
19:49 under Steve McLaren, he stood outside with an umbrella and the front pages was Wally with a
19:56 brolly. And I think that is, especially for the English football fan, has stuck long in the
20:01 consciousness. And so I can only presume it was that, but you would think we've got podiums,
20:06 we get little steps for him to climb up onto so that he's the size of the podium. You would think
20:11 the very least we could do is either have an umbrella or some sort of covering. I mean, we
20:16 do it, we can do it on the streets for al fresco dining. How can the prime minister not do a speech
20:22 outside Downing Street without an umbrella or someone just there holding one? It was really
20:26 bad. I mean, it doesn't make him look strong. I just, and actually I was blown away by the amount
20:32 of MPs who really absolutely despised him, who said, I just kind of felt sorry for him. I mean,
20:38 the idea of announcing this thing that's so important, you're really struggling in the polls
20:43 and you're announcing this huge election, which you think, you know, maybe I can turn things around.
20:47 And instead you've got the music of your arch enemy playing, you're absolutely soaked and
20:52 everyone just pities you rather than being inspired. It was just really flat and sad.
20:57 And it just led to some extraordinary front page images today, which in some ways could define
21:03 this general election campaign, unless something even more ridiculous happens, which we shouldn't
21:07 rule out. But Rachel, obviously we've spoken about the SNP. We've had a number of polls now
21:12 showing them kind of sliding in the polls, Labour taking the lead, Labour potentially becoming the
21:17 dominant party in Scotland once again. This is something that's happened throughout Humza Yousaf's
21:23 time in office. We obviously saw the most recent one that appears to be continuing under John Swinney.
21:29 Can the SNP turn this around, do you think? They can. I don't think it's going to be as bad as
21:36 this latest poll that puts them at 11 seats. I don't think it's going to be as bad as that.
21:41 But I think retaining anything like the number of seats they have just now is too late to turn
21:47 that around, I don't think. So I think it is going to be a case of can they get more seats than Labour
21:52 rather than can they keep the 43 odd seats that they have? Because I think it's too late for that
21:57 now for the SNP. Because as you said, it's been declining for quite a wee while now and we only
22:02 have six odd weeks now still to go. So yeah, it's going to be difficult for them, isn't it? It's
22:07 going to be difficult for them. And I think they are just going to have to keep pushing,
22:11 like you said, the economy, like you said, dissolving the union as well. I mean, I don't
22:18 know what Alex, what you think about the Conservatives down south of what they're
22:21 thinking of the union at the moment. I mean, they're absolutely buzzing. I mean, at a time
22:27 that their own party is doing very badly. But the Scottish Tories, they're in a position where they
22:32 might make a gain, you know, at most, they think they can hold seats and maybe add one. And the
22:38 new First Minister has no time to kind of get his feet under the table and turn things around.
22:44 They are absolutely delighted. And I think we have to remember what Douglas Ross said,
22:50 or remember when he got in trouble for saying that in seats where it's the SNP or Labour,
22:54 people should perhaps vote Labour, because there is a fundamental difference between the Scottish
22:58 Tories and Tories. They are perhaps more left wing on a lot of issues. They are more progressive
23:03 than their main party, and unionism is a large reason why they went to that party in the first
23:08 place. It's not necessarily, oh, I'm a Conservative in my ideals, it was about unionism. And that is
23:13 perhaps more important to them. So I mean, I spoke to some who thought, you know, even things are
23:17 really bad for us, we're probably probably going to rout the SNP and set back independence,
23:23 decades if it's not already, you know, there anyway, because we've had this whole de facto
23:27 referendum thing. And now it looks like the SNP are not going to win enough seats to even claim
23:32 that they are absolutely delighted. I mean, some are worried about their seats and someone told me
23:37 that they're just going to get drunk because what else can they do? But other than that, the mood
23:41 is pretty, pretty positive. Yeah, we don't even know really what's happened to that de facto
23:46 referendum plan. I think John Swinney kind of endorsed it, maybe, maybe I'm misremembering here,
23:52 and I can kind of comment he made to the national newspaper. This was obviously the plan they had to
23:56 push for a second independence referendum, if they want a majority of seats in the general election.
24:02 But just the conversation seems to have moved on so much since Nicola Sturgeon was coming up with
24:08 those kind of electoral wheezes. We just don't really seem to be in the same place at all anymore.
24:12 And I just, what do you think, Rachel, do you think independence will really feature in this
24:17 campaign? The SNP will want it to, they'll definitely have it on their leaflets, they'll
24:21 definitely have it in any of these debates that they do. But I think when it comes to voters,
24:26 yes, there'll be the odd one or two people who will still be voting on independence lines,
24:32 but I think for the majority of Scots, they're more concerned with how much money they've got
24:35 in their pocket, they're more concerned about how long it takes to get to see a doctor on the NHS.
24:40 And that's what they're going to be voting on this time around. I think also trying to,
24:45 from people I've spoken to, I think also trying to make a statement against Partygate and the
24:51 mini-budget is also going to feature quite highly in people's reasons for voting too. So
24:55 independence won't be as important this time around as it maybe was in 2015, 17 and 19.
25:02 Yeah, well, thank you very much, both of you, for tuning in and thank you everyone for listening.
25:08 As I say, I'm sure this general election campaign will have loads of fascinating moments in the
25:14 weeks to come. We will be there covering everything, both north and south of the border.
25:19 Please keep an eye on the Scotsman's website and pick up a copy of the paper as well. And once
25:23 again, sorry for the slightly chaotic atmosphere of this episode of the Scheme. It's very much a
25:28 general election has just been called episode. If anything, it just adds to the atmosphere of it.
25:32 It's got that kind of vibe of Laura Kunzberg in the back of a taxi doing the newscast podcast.
25:38 But anyway, thank you very much for listening and tune in again next week.