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00:00That's the question, if someone came up to you and thought you were famous and asked for an autograph, would you go along with it or would you just...
00:07You know, people do come up to me and believe it or not, they do ask me for autographs.
00:10If somebody confused me with another celebrity, I would have to come clean.
00:14Really? I don't know, I think I'd just go along with it.
00:17I'm Drew Hendry and I'm the Scottish National Party candidate for Inverness Sky and West Russia.
00:22Trust is obviously quite a big issue with politicians and people nowadays, especially with the general election coming up.
00:28How do you deal with that?
00:30Well, I think you have to go out and listen to people and speak to people.
00:33Trust is something that has to be earned, it's not something you just get because you're elected or you're a candidate.
00:39And I think what you have to do is show a willingness to work hard, to listen to people, to act on their concerns.
00:46And I think it helps when you've got a track record of actually delivering on some of the things you've been asked to do.
00:52And I'm pleased to say over my career in politics, I've managed to help many thousands of people with cases.
00:57And we've managed to get a lot of things done across the city and across the constituency.
01:01And I'm looking to do more with this new constituency in the areas that I'm going to be campaigning in for the first time now.
01:07And young people are generally not as engaged with politics.
01:10And I can see it going that way a lot more with the older generation as well.
01:14Especially when I go out and do box pops and speak to people, they're not really engaged with it as much nowadays.
01:19How would you change that personally? How do you want to get more people to get more engaged with politics?
01:25I think it's a really important question and it is hard because I think people know the effect of social media
01:30and the fact that there's a bit of toxicity around.
01:33But I think we need to encourage people.
01:35I think politicians of my generation and other generations need to get out and actually speak to young people,
01:41listen to them, engage in schools and other events.
01:44And I think far too often we just take young people for granted.
01:48We've got some fantastic young people in the Highlands.
01:51I regularly do as many events as I possibly can with young people and in schools to try and just encourage them to question.
01:58And that ability to question politicians is what gets people engaged, I think.
02:03So if you make yourself available, you go out there and you encourage people to get involved,
02:08think about issues that are important to them, I think that is something that helps to do that.
02:12One of the things that I think has been a big regret about the fact that we've had to endure Brexit
02:18is that young people don't get the opportunity like I did to go and travel and work abroad.
02:23And I think that would give a bit more inspiration.
02:26So what's next on the cards for changes?
02:29Well I think there's quite a lot for us still to do in the city but this is a big constituency
02:34so I've got to be mindful that there's another link road that's talked about down in Fort William.
02:39I need to get movement on that. There are healthcare facilities and tourism issues in Skye.
02:44Here in the city there's a lot more to be done with transport.
02:47There's been promise from Network Rail, which is a body owned by the UK government,
02:52that they'll revamp the railway station here. That's something I want to push and get moved forward.
02:58But we have other transport links and things that we need to improve here.
03:02And obviously another part of the work I've been doing is to work to get the castle reopened to the public.
03:07That'll happen in 2025 but we need to make sure the infrastructure around that is there.
03:12Which is why I've been keen to be working on things like the Bucked Park and so forth to get that upgraded too.
03:17Politicians do often blame one another for issues.
03:20So how can we trust them if they never take responsibility for anything really?
03:25Well I think not all politicians blame each other.
03:28I very much try and I think if anybody looks at my campaign, they look at my leaflets, they look at my history,
03:34I very much try and work across the political boundaries.
03:37I'm probably unique in that when I was council leader in Highland Council,
03:41I ran a council, an administration during the independent referendum campaign
03:47which was 50% SNP and 50% Labour and Lib Dems.
03:51Now you can't do that unless you're willing to work with other people.
03:54And we managed to do that successfully and deliver some of the things I've already talked about successfully during that period.
04:01That's the way I've always worked. It's the way we completed the city deal.
04:04I had to work with Tory ministers to get that across the deal.
04:07When I brought Gigabit City to Inverness, we had to work with private companies, the Scottish government, the UK government,
04:14so that we could get that private investment here which has allowed £20 million of public money to be spent elsewhere in the constituency.
04:21So those are the kinds of things I do.
04:23So I don't blame other politicians, I might not agree with them and I might differ with them greatly,
04:28but I always try and find the common ground so that we can work together.
04:31We see charisma playing quite a part in political popularity,
04:35especially recently we've seen Boris Johnson, we've seen Nigel Farage, even Trump, gain a lot of popularity from their charisma.
04:43What would you mark yourself out of 10 for charisma and why?
04:47Well it depends if that charisma is being marked against Donald Trump or Boris Johnson,
04:51because I wouldn't want to mark myself against those guys at all.
04:55Look, those guys are fake.
04:58I think genuine charisma, if people are going to really pay attention to you and listen to you,
05:05you have to be as honest and straightforward as you possibly can be.
05:09Just using slogans and trying to be popular or populist,
05:13I think obviously it works in the short term for some people, but I don't think that works in the long term.
05:19If charisma is that, I'm not keen to have that charisma.
05:24I just hope that my outgoing nature, the fact that I'm willing to speak to people and listen to people, is charisma enough for folk.
05:31Do you think people being swayed by Farage is down to charisma or down to popularity?
05:38I think it's due to the fact that for some reason Nigel Farage, who's failed in every election he's stood in,
05:45got elected on the list of the European Parliament.
05:49I think it's down to the fact that he gets so much exposure in the media.
05:53I don't understand why people in the media are enthralled to Nigel Farage.
05:58I think he's got pretty distasteful views.
06:00He's one of the key architects of delivering Brexit, which has caused so much harm to people.
06:05So I don't really understand why he gets all the airtime he does, but he does.
06:10I think people have sometimes taken him by saying, oh, he tells it like it is or whatever.
06:15He doesn't.
06:16When they were telling all those lies about Brexit, that wasn't telling it like it is.
06:20That was telling people what they thought they wanted to hear,
06:23so they could try and win that particular short-term argument.
06:27But in the long term, that's left us with a lot of problems.
06:30I think people like that often do, and always do.
06:33If people are attracted by Farage, they're not my kind of people.
06:39A big problem is misleading information.
06:41We've seen that a lot recently with social media and AI-generated posts
06:46that are going and circulating around on Instagram, TikTok, etc.
06:50Have you ever experienced that, and how do you see that impacting this general election?
06:55Yeah, I've experienced misinformation and disinformation, personally and politically,
07:02and I think it is wrong.
07:04Look, politicians are human beings, and they can make mistakes when they're saying things.
07:08They can mix up a word or get figures wrong or whatever.
07:13If there's an opportunity to correct it or change that later on,
07:16I think they should use that opportunity to do it.
07:20People aren't perfect, but to deliberately set out to say to people
07:25something is one thing when it's clearly not, and to continue to do that time and time again,
07:31is a disservice.
07:32I don't believe, and I hope I'm right, I don't believe that works in the long term,
07:37and I think people do see through it, because I have faith in people,
07:40and I have a lot of hope that when people are looking at things,
07:44especially now when social media, along with its downsides,
07:49does give an opportunity for people to question things,
07:52I hope that that's more exposed as we go forward.
07:55But it is a real problem, and I think there's also an issue with foreign interference
07:59on disinformation and misinformation.
08:02We know that the UK government's done very, very little about Russian interference in the past,
08:07and that's a real issue.
08:09Hostile nations doing these kinds of things is something we should be really aware of.
08:14So it's bigger than the local, it's bigger than the UK or the national,
08:19this is a global issue, and at some point we're going to have to tackle that.
08:23It's a great question, but I can't give you a good answer,
08:26because we don't know how we're going to regulate these things,
08:29we don't know how we're going to tackle that misinformation into the future,
08:32and artificial intelligence.
08:34But we need to get switched on to it pretty quickly,
08:37because it could be very dangerous if we don't get it right.
08:40Having said that, again, look at the other side of AI,
08:43it can be really helpful, but I think we do need to get a grip on it,
08:47and I think more people in politics have to understand it,
08:51have to listen to people who deal with it, and work out what's the way forward.
08:55The housing market is so bad at the moment,
08:57people are struggling to rent, far less buy a property.
09:00Is that going to change, and how can that change?
09:05Well, it's good you're asking me this question today,
09:07because two bits of information have come out yesterday.
09:10There was data showing that it takes less time for people in Scotland
09:14to gain the 20% deposit they need to buy a house than anywhere else in the UK.
09:19And the other thing that's been launched is an initiative,
09:22which is a help-to-buy scheme by the Scottish Government,
09:25that will allow young people to get on the housing ladder.
09:28It's been done before, and it worked very successfully,
09:31and I know people who've been able to take advantage of that here in the Highlands.
09:36And I think it's something that's a really good idea.
09:39The equity in it means that you can't sell the property in the same way,
09:44but it does mean that you can get on the housing ladder,
09:46and you can take these things forward.
09:48How can you ensure that our green spaces aren't going to be impacted detrimentally from this,
09:56whilst trying to build more houses and properties for people,
09:59to stop the housing crisis as well?
10:01We do have a lot of land in the Highlands, and we have a lot of space,
10:05and we need to make sure that we're using that properly and considerably.
10:09It is important to have green spaces.
10:12When we were developing the West Link, for example,
10:14one of the things we were keen to do was open up land for housing,
10:17but also create another park, which we managed to do.
10:20So in addition to Wynn Park, you've now got another park just next to the canal as well.
10:25There's a lot of land which is zoned already for housing.
10:28I think we need to make sure that we are pressing ahead with that as quickly as we can.
10:33One of the important things about protecting land is building the right kinds of housing.
10:38So if you look at, I talked about short-termism,
10:41I think a lot of developers have got away with building five-, four-bedroom houses, three-bedroom houses,
10:46and not really building the kind of one- and two-bedroom houses
10:50that would allow young people in particular to get on the housing ladder.
10:55So yes, we've got to move into the 21st century and beyond,
10:58but we've also got to do it in a considerate and careful way.
11:01Do you think that Airbnbs have become an issue in the Highlands,
11:04because there's such a sheer amount of them?
11:07And there's a lot of tourists, obviously, that we want to accommodate for,
11:10but do you think there should be, for instance, more hotels
11:13where there is kind of this mass amount of people that can stay in at one time,
11:17rather than occupying properties that could be used as a home for someone?
11:22Well, there's a lot of legitimate owners of holiday-let properties
11:27who run it as a business, and those homes are occupied pretty much all year round,
11:34and that's a legitimate use of it.
11:36But yes, there are also a lot of Airbnb usage,
11:40and people using second homes that are largely unoccupied for most of the year,
11:45and that is a problem.
11:46I'm delighted that, unlike the rest of the UK,
11:48the Scottish Government stopped council house sales,
11:51because that took a lot of housing out of the market for people.
11:55So they've stopped that now,
11:57and we can actually retain the houses that we're building
12:00in terms of those social houses for rent in the Highlands.
12:04We need to do more of that, obviously,
12:05and I'd like to see a number of things coming from Westminster
12:09reversing the capital budget cut for a start to allow us to do that.
12:12But I think that tackling the issue of the second homes
12:16is something that affects people across the constituency.
12:20Particularly in certain areas.
12:22There are certain villages where it's almost impossible for local people to get a home,
12:26and every house on a street, almost, apart from one or two,
12:30is empty when you go round.
12:32I've been knocking the doors, and people have said,
12:34no, that's a holiday home, that's a holiday home, that's a holiday home.
12:37So we do have an issue with it.
12:39We can't turn back the clock,
12:40so what we need to do is, when we're developing new buildings,
12:43new estates and things like that,
12:46I think we have to work across party and across the different bodies in the Highlands
12:50to say, how do we stop this falling into just second home use?
12:54People just snapping it up, and then going into second home use.
12:57I think there are ways we can do that,
12:59but we need to sit down and have a proper chat about it.
13:01Do you think that is subsequently affecting property prices as well?
13:05The fact that people are coming over and snapping up these properties,
13:08say they come from London, and it is more affordable here,
13:11I've experienced that it's more affordable here,
13:13but it's taking that away from the locals and the local aspects,
13:18and without locals, we don't have the businesses and the authenticity that the Highlands actually has.
13:25It does raise prices artificially when people are buying up properties and moving in,
13:30because if somebody, for example, is retired, they've got a big pile of money,
13:33they've sold their house in another place,
13:35they're not going to be haggling the price down, not necessarily.
13:40So they can't actually just afford to come in and pay the price,
13:44and often they're quite glad to, because it looks so cheap to them.
13:47But for local people, that means that it's going to be harder to achieve that.
13:51So it's why I think schemes like the Help to Buy for first-time buyers are so important,
13:57to say, look, here's a scheme which isn't really open to that kind of market.
14:02It is something that is going to be affordable to people, and we need to do that.
14:06But again, I think what we need to do is to listen and talk more about how we tackle that into the future,
14:13as opposed to saying, yeah, it's a problem today, we'll deal with it tomorrow.
14:16And I think it's something that needs a more strategic approach.
14:19Obviously it's our future, but do you think there is a sense of them just giving up in voting in general
14:24because they're not seeing anything change?
14:26I think exactly that. I think there is a feeling that they're not engaged.
14:33I think in Scotland we've tried to make sure that we are engaging young people.
14:36When you look at the under-22 bus travel pass, for example, that we've brought in,
14:41the fact that we can still get free tuition fees because of the Scottish Government doing that,
14:46and you can't get those in the rest of the UK.
14:48So we've tried to say to young people, look, there are policies here for you that you can vote for,
14:54and you will probably want to protect into the future,
14:57along with other policies that affect young people, for example, with ailments and so forth.
15:01So you've got things like free prescriptions and so forth.
15:04These things, I think, are important when you're trying to get going,
15:07you maybe have limited funds and things like that.
15:10It's important to get that kind of support.
15:12And I mentioned about the first-time buyer initiatives and things.
15:15So I think we try really hard here.
15:17I think, come as no surprise, they believe Scotland should be an independent country.
15:22I think if we had the full powers, we could do a lot more of those kinds of things
15:27to actually say, look, you're not only a great place for young people to live and work,
15:33but here's more help to get started and get going.
15:37Scotland already has more young people in education and training than ever before,
15:43further education and training than ever before.
15:45But I think there's always more you can do, and that's what we should strive for.
15:49At the other end of the scale, I think we've got to get rid of child poverty,
15:52because if you grow up in poverty, you're never going to be engaged with politics,
15:56because everything's being done to you.
15:58And when we brought in the Scottish Child Payment, as opposed to the two-child cap in Westminster,
16:05the Scottish Child Payment has lifted 100,000 children out of poverty.
16:08Giving that best possible start, providing childcare,
16:13doing those kinds of things to make sure families get a good start,
16:17I think will help to say, look, you are valued, you are involved, it is your future.
16:24But there's so much work to do, it's a really difficult thing, so much work to be done.
16:28Do you think the process of voting is almost behind the times,
16:33in terms of a polling station, registering to vote and postal votes, that kind of thing?
16:38I thought the other day, why can't I just vote online?
16:42Should that not be a thing?
16:44Yeah, I do think we need to look at a safe way of doing it.
16:47We were talking earlier about the perils of AI and so forth,
16:51so we've got to make sure if we are adopting an online voting system,
16:54and there's no reason why we shouldn't look at that, it needs to be done with care and thought.
16:59But actually what we've seen in the UK is a roll back on the ability to vote,
17:03by the introduction of identification,
17:06which is a sledgehammer to crack a nut that doesn't exist in terms of voter fraud.
17:11There's almost no recorded voter fraud in the UK,
17:14and yet young people uniquely now, in particular, are being told they have to take ID,
17:20that older people can use other ID for.
17:24So, for example, I mentioned the bus pass for under-22s,
17:28you can't use that, but you can use an over-60 bus pass.
17:31And so there are more difficulties for people voting now,
17:35because of these changes, than there should be.
17:38It should be easier to vote for people.
17:40And yes, we do need to move forward, we do need to say,
17:43how do we embrace a better way of voting?
17:46Some countries have compulsory voting.
17:49So you might go in and cancel your ballot,
17:52or say none of the above, or whatever,
17:55and that's your democratic right, but you have to go and vote.
17:58So I think there is a lot to be done to say,
18:00what can we do to encourage more participation?
18:03But again, you can't impose that on people, you have to listen to them.
18:05You have to say, what do you want from this?
18:08And then try and work out how to do it.