Scotsman Bulletin Tuesday 11 February
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00:00Hello, welcome to the Scotsman's daily video bulletin for this Tuesday.
00:13My name is Dale Miller.
00:13I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman.
00:16I'm joined by Deputy Political Editor, David Boll.
00:19Now, David, I know you're out and about.
00:22It's Holyrood recess, doing some interviews in Glasgow.
00:24So there might be a little bit of background noise during the call, but all good.
00:29We obviously want to talk about a couple of your stories, David, and we want to talk about the front page of today's Scotsman.
00:36And we led on immigration arrests surge in a crackdown on illegal working.
00:42So these were figures obtained from the Home Office, basically recording a significant uptick in immigration raids on illegal workers across Scotland that has taken place since Labor came to power.
00:56Certainly compared to the final year of the Conservative government, some interesting figures and a particular sharp rise last month.
01:05Now, Labor and the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper, have acknowledged that there's been a significant increase in trying to catch illegal workers across different parts of the country.
01:16And in some areas, Scotland recorded some of the highest figures in terms of these raids.
01:22You can read that full story from Mardin McLaughlin at Scotsman.com, and it's on the front page, as you can see, of today's Scotsman.
01:29We also led on some pictures of the final farewell for Hope Gordon, the six-year-old girl who was tragically found dead alongside her father in West Lothian.
01:42Also, an exclusive beer from David Boll.
01:45And David, I want you to tell us a bit more about this, because it's something that's synonymous with Glasgow, I guess.
01:53A lot of people have caught the subway.
01:55This is a great little story.
01:57Can you tell us a bit about it?
02:00Yeah, so the subway has undergone quite a lot of renovations, I guess.
02:04It's 280 million pound being invested over quite a long period of time.
02:07And part of that was these new subway trains.
02:10They look very modern and very fancy.
02:12They've got very shiny lights.
02:13And the part of it was that they throw you about quite a lot.
02:18They're very shootly, basically.
02:20And the subway, although it's known as the Clockwork Orange, it's not a complete circle and it is a bit bumpy.
02:28But they had a lot of complaints that these new trains were really throwing people about.
02:33And I've been on it, and although my three-year-old loved the bumpy ride and was laughing her way, I did feel quite motion sickness.
02:39So it was a thing.
02:40And I put in a Freedom of Information request to see if they put any dampeners or any sort of shock absorbers in to kind of mitigate this.
02:48And they had.
02:49It was more than 100 shock absorbers they had to install.
02:52And it's cost £119,000, which is, compared to the overinvestment, is fairly small.
02:58But it's a lot of money that they've had to retrofit, essentially, to stop some of the customers feeling a bit sick and taking license for some of those complaints.
03:09And certainly, David, I know the subway always had a little bit of a reputation for that with the old carriages, probably those catching it when the carriages have been updated with the thought that they weren't going on a fairground ride.
03:22But it's a great story.
03:25And as you said, that came from just your own experience on the subway and catching it yourself.
03:30So you can read that story at Scotsman.com.
03:33I also want to ask you about something else.
03:35So it was a position set out by Anasawa Labor yesterday, and it may have seemed straightforward, but he was effectively running through policies that were brought in effectively across the S&P government or the S&P's time and power and saying that Labor would retain them if he was first minister.
03:54Labor have also been doing some ads around this.
03:56So I do want to get sort of your analytical thoughts on this, because it's an interesting approach where you're effectively saying that you're going to keep policies that another political party in a long-running government you're trying to displace brought in.
04:13Yeah, exactly. It's not just another party, like you mentioned.
04:16It's their main rival going into this election next year.
04:18And at some point, we're going to have to see a dividing line.
04:21It's quite fair to say that the only real dividing line between the two parties is on the constitution, and that's not a big issue, which it's not.
04:29Then it's very difficult to tell them apart.
04:32And it is quite interesting, Anasawa is very much pitching this as he's being pro devolution by setting out his position on these policies, like free prescriptions, free tuition fees.
04:42Some of the things we kind of maybe take for granted a bit in Scotland that you don't get in other parts of the UK.
04:47It is interesting he's chosen now to kind of set out that Labour will keep all those policies, obviously trying to appeal to some of the SNP votes who may be looking down south and seeing some of the policies that Labour colleagues at Westminster are bringing forward that maybe aren't so popular up here.
05:04We've obviously seen this week a lot of talk about immigration from Labour at Westminster, trying to kind of appeal to those remain voters or people who supported Brexit.
05:15That doesn't work in Scotland.
05:16That is a problem for Anasawa.
05:18So maybe this is trying to kind of counteract that and show the Scottish public that they are quite a progressive left wing party, quite similar to the SNP, which has been popular for the last two decades almost.
05:30So he's kind of preaching to the crowd, but he's preaching to the right crowd to try and regain some of that support that's been lost in part by his colleagues at Westminster.
05:42David, some may look at this, though, and say they're replicating areas where we know the SNP and also if you look at immigration parties like Reform have been getting traction.
05:53We know Labour have been going backwards in the polls and the SNP, at least here in Scotland, have been going back up again and Reform are on a steady trajectory up at the moment across the whole of the UK, not just Scotland.
06:07Should this be concerning for Labour, that they're having to dig into areas where other parties are getting traction rather than laying out their own paths, so to speak?
06:17I think it is a bit concerning, given that we've only just had the general election.
06:20The next Westminster election isn't for a good four and a bit years, so there's a long time for it to change and they do seem to be bothered by the polls.
06:30Bothered by the polls, the fact that they are, like you said, sort of preaching to that Remain vote in places and policy areas that are getting traction, whereas they have plenty of time to set out their own position and win support.
06:42I mean, the polls for Reform are not great for Labour, but it's a long time and there's lots that could go wrong for Reform and there's lots that could go right or wrong for Labour, so it is a bit of a panic.
06:55The Holyrood one, though, is kind of just over the horizon, so that is something, and that will be the first real poll up here to see if Reform actually will get traction at the polls.
07:07We've had some sort of fringe parties before, sort of ALBA, who we thought would maybe get a couple of MSPs and never did, so it would just be interesting to see whether they can follow through on that.
07:17I can understand why Labour are paying licence to Reform down south. It is a big part of their vote call was that sort of former Labour Brexit vote in the north of England, but it's whether that kind of cuts through to Scotland.
07:31There is a different demographic up here, there's different issues that bother people, and it is quite tricky for Anasawa to kind of navigate that, and that is probably why we're seeing this kind of softer approach from him where he can and trying to distance himself from some of those unpopular decisions
07:47that his colleagues have taken.
07:49You'll be able to read some analysis from David around this issue at the Scotsman site later today.
07:55You can also read that story about the sugarly trains.
07:59You'll find it either under the politics or the transport tabs on the navigation bar.
08:04You'll be able to tune into the site later today.
08:08We'll have all the latest from the Dennis Law funeral, including pictures.
08:13We're expecting a significant turnout, including a lot of people from across the sport of football and beyond there.
08:19And please go out and pick up a copy of the Scotsman tomorrow for all your very latest in news here in Scotland, across the UK and more widely across the world.
08:28Thanks to you, David, and thanks to everyone else for joining us.