166. John Swinney: Identity, Independence, and The Future of Scotland

27:53Because obviously, if you're Mandy Morris-Davies, you'd say, you know, you would say that, wouldn't you, right? I mean, how are we supposed to know who's right and who's wrong in this? I don't want to make you defensive about education because we'll never get anywhere. Neither of us know as much about Scottish education as you do. But what could you set up in a system across the board, doesn't matter, health, education, transport, which allow the public to look at figures that allow them to fairly judge who's right and who's wrong? We've got a thing called the National Performance Framework in Scotland.

28:22which has been in place for, I introduced it in 2007, and it's a set of essentially objective indicators about how is Scotland getting on? And are we progressing? Are we retrenching? Where is that all heading? We've tried to take that forward on a broad parliamentary basis, and actually there's been a lot of engagement across Parliament about how committees in Parliament take a close interest in this because it is an attempt to try to make available to people, if they wish to, some information that they could look at and see, well, how is the country getting on? And could consider that. Now, I accept that, you know, you'd have to go onto the government website to look at it and you'd have to interrogate the indicators and all the rest of it.

29:06But it is an attempt to try to inform the debate with some of that quality information you're talking about. So, John, taking that at face value, where would you say you're doing less well against these indicators? I think we've obviously got recurring challenges about poverty and about economic activity. So those are underlying challenges in Scottish society. So hence, my biggest priority as First Minister is to eradicate child poverty, because I'm trying to essentially avoid repeating what has happened for quite some time in Scotland, where there is a proportion of our population that is born into poverty and that simply is perpetuated through life.

29:50And I'm trying my level best and it's building on some really good work undertaken by my predecessors, principled by Nicola Sturgeon, who presided over the introduction of the Scottish Child Payment, which is a direct payment which was only possible because of powers that we negotiated in the aftermath of the independence referendum. So looking at your performance indicators, it's not educational health where you think you're falling behind. It's child poverty and economic activity. And that's where I think we've got, I think that's where the long term transformation of the country comes from.

30:24On issues like health, for example, you know, I've told people I would get, I would deliver improvements in the National Health Service. And we are seeing those improvements being delivered. Long waits for treatment, which are a product of the post-COVID environment. they are coming down steadily within Scotland. We're seeing a rising number of GPs to expand capacity. So all of that is underway, but some of the underlying challenges are those in relation to poverty, which I'm trying to attack. It won't surprise you to know, John, that I'm a subscriber to Holyrood magazine and was reading the latest issue last night where the inestimable Mandy Rhodes was writing about this plan to give obese people in some parts of Scotland the jab.

31:09And she was questioning it from a kind of ethical standpoint. And I just wanted two big issues that I think do have a particular impact upon Scotland. One is obesity and the other is drugs. And just on those two, whether you think it is a particular problem and what more you could do about it. Well, they are both significant issues, Alastair. And we set out just earlier in the summer a population health framework which is all about trying to make progress on getting people essentially to lead healthier lives. So that's about trying to shift many of our services into earlier intervention so that we are trying to get people to exercise more where they are leading a more active life, where weight is under control, where people have got purpose in their lives so We are actively supporting them to avoid becoming involved in drugs and various measures of that type.

32:07But the whole population health framework idea is about shifting the emphasis of our system from the reactive interventions, which I accept we have got to make. You know, if somebody has got a drug addiction, we have got to put in place rehabilitation services to support that person to recover from their drug addiction. But we've got to also concentrate on trying to avoid that happening in the first place by the nature of our earlier intervention. And the jab? There will be a place for it, but the judgment about that has got to be made on a clinical basis. And taking on the food companies? Well, again, that's part of the overall work in relation to the population health framework, where we've got to be encouraging and motivating people to lead healthier lifestyles in terms of what they consume.

32:56but there is obviously a role for regulation and we've gone into some of that space on regulation already and we have to consider whether more needs to be done OK John, a really quick break and back for more Toast the holidays in a new way and raise a glass of rum chata a delicious creamy blend of horchata with rum enjoy it over ice or in your coffee Rum chata, your holiday cocktails just got sweeter tap or click the banner for more Drink responsibly. Caribbean rum with real dairy cream, natural and artificial flavors. Alcohol 13.75 % by volume, 27.5 proof. Copyright 2025 Agave Logo Brands, Powaukee, Wisconsin.

33:34All rights reserved.

33:55plus free samples and free shipping. Head to blinds.com now for up to 45 % off site-wide plus a free professional measure. Rules and restrictions may apply. Hello, I'm Professor Hannah Fry. And I'm Michael Stevens. Together we host The Rest is Science, a brand new show from Goalhanger. Every week we take a fresh look at the familiar. We're going to be exploring the forces, the theories and the phenomena that shape how we live in, think about and see the world. We're going to pull apart what we take for granted to reveal the unexpected patterns and hidden logic just beneath the surface. Because that's what moves science forward.

34:36Not the polishing of answers, but the sharpening of questions. It's curiosity that sparks those, hey wait, how does that actually work, kind of a moment that changes the way we see the world. Yeah, I mean, science isn't a subject. It's a way of seeing. It's a way of noticing all of the extraordinary things that are hiding in plain sight and realizing that the familiar was never ordinary at all. Stick around until the end of this episode for a first listen. And if curiosity gets the better of you, join us every Tuesday and Thursday for new episodes of The Rest is Science.

35:11One of the things I'm not hearing you talk about as much as I would say that you talked about 20, 30 years ago is inequality. I think if we look at the way in which you framed things back 20, 30 years ago, you would have been talking more about what we would now see as the gap between the top 1 % and the rest, and between rich people, and you would have been more focused on making sure that wealthier people are paying more tax and that there's more equality in society. Why are we not hearing so much from you on that? Well, essentially, because that's what we are doing. It's in our programme. So, you know, higher earners will pay more in taxation living in Scotland than they would if they were living in England.

35:51And that's been a conscious policy decision, again, using powers that we acquired in the aftermath of the 2014 referendum. So that is one of our means of generating more revenue, which then allows us to afford measures such as the Scottish child payment, which is a direct measure to tackle inequality, which is about lifting children out of poverty. And talking a bit about income tax, how about wealth taxes? How about getting after the fact that one of the biggest gaps in society is not just about what people earn, but it's about their wealth? Yeah, and obviously we've got a limited scope for the exercise of responsibilities because we have to, if we wanted, for example, to develop a new tax, we'd have to get the consent of the UK government to enable us to do that.

36:39We can vary elements of the income tax system. We've got a certain amount of control over property taxation through the equivalent of stamp duty land tax. But there are limitations on our powers. But undoubtedly, there is scope for that debate to be taken forward and for these issues to be considered. Would you like to be more? Well, I'd like to see us being in a position to act in relation to wealth taxation, but we've got to be confident that we could act in a sustainable way in taking forward such decisions. A lot of the problems that you're talking about, that the Scottish government is trying to deal with, they're kind of the same problems that you have been talking about now for 18 years.

37:21You've been in power a long time. And I just wonder whether, you know, honestly, looking inside yourself and looking through all the difficulties and the scandals with Salmond and then with Nicola Sturgeon, whether you actually have delivered on a par with what you expected to when you first set out on this. I think we have answered, to be candid, and I think people's lives in Scotland are better as a consequence of the exercise of self-government and also the exercise of SNP government. So there are aspects of people's lives that are better because of decisions that were taken by my predecessors.

37:58So, for example, Scotland was the first part of the United Kingdom to ban smoking in public places, and that was undertaken by the Labour Liberal executive. I supported it as an opposition member in 2006 and I think people's lives in Scotland are better as a consequence. Public health is better because of that as a measure. So that's an example of self-government making a difference. In relation to the exercise of power by the SNP government, well, for example, young people in Scotland are able to go to university in Scotland without having to pay tuition fees. We've got a lower level of child poverty now than in the rest of the United Kingdom and that's falling because of the actions of an SNP government.

38:38I think we've got, if you look at early learning and childcare, children and young people are able to get access to a broader range of early learning and childcare at preschool years. So there's just three different examples of where people's lives are better. Unemployment in Scotland just now is significant. Lower unemployment in the rest of the United Kingdom and a variety of other indicators have taken place. economic productivity and the economy has grown faster in Scotland than it has in the rest of the UK since we came to office Okay, John here's a very personal question now personal from my perspective why can't you build a bloody ferry on time and on budget?

39:19Well, obviously we've relied on a shipyard Ferguson shipyard to build ferries one of them has been commissioned and is in service the next one will be ready in 2026 You can't pretend this has been a good story It's had its difficulty It's a long-running story. But we've also commissioned four other large vessels, the first of which is coming to us very shortly, and that will allow your island crossings to be more straightforward. When we talked about tides, I guess one of the big tides was 2011 when you got this... It really was a tide that you felt, you're on the march, Labour's on the way out in Scotland.

39:57And then you had the independence referendum, which you lost, and then you had the Brexit referendum, which our side lost. And I always felt that the combination of those tides, allied to the fact of then Boris Johnson becoming Prime Minister, I felt that was the high point of the possibilities for independence. And I kind of felt that if you didn't get it then, it's going to be very, very, very hard. Do you feel the independence argument has been pushed backwards? No, because if you look at polls, so objectively, polls essentially show that Scotland, And it oscillates, but it's often a majority in favour of independence by a margin of perhaps 4 % to 6%, and sometimes it's the other way around.

40:47So it's about 50-50 in Scotland, which of course is stronger than it was in 2014. And the second factor which makes me think that the independence question is very much central to the debates that Scotland now has, is the fact that it is very obvious that Scotland and England are moving in very different political directions in the current context. So where the United Kingdom government, the Labour government is, where the Conservatives are in England and where reform are in England are emphatically going in a direction to the right. And I don't think Scotland is, there will be support for some of these aspirations in Scotland, but not nearly the prevailing political direction which is happening in England.

41:38And Scotland is now, I think, on a very different journey because we are not going along with the drift to the right that is now happening in England. Explain this, because most listeners will think, well, hold a sec, that was what you said for 14 years of Tory government, but now there's a Labour government in, and you're saying that the Labour government is taking England away from Scotland. Tell us about why you think Labour's gone right wing. Well, I think what we've seen, we're having this conversation a few days after the Home Secretary has gone to the House of Commons and set out a very different way of thinking in relation to asylum and immigration.

42:17That's one example. I think some of the positioning of the Labour Party in England, I barely recognise what the Labour Party in England is talking about because they are echoing and reinforcing the language of Farage. And I think if you go onto that territory, as Labour found out in the Carfilly by-election, if you go into that territory, if you don't confront reform, you'll be consumed by reform. Give us examples of Labour going right wing. Well, what I said in relation to the stance that the Home Secretary has taken, the discussion around about ECHR, I can't believe the Labour Party is embracing what they're saying about the European Convention on Human Rights.

43:02And then, of course, the other issue, and this is about the positive arguments for independence, I want to see us, I am open and recognising that the decision to leave the European Union has been catastrophic for the United Kingdom and its damage continues to be done. And the Labour Party is imprisoned by not being able to say what needs to be said about Brexit and its disaster because of its fear of being consumed by reform. And the sooner Scotland can be a member of the European Union, from my point of view, the better, because it will help us to address all sorts of issues about migration, about economic opportunity, about economic collaboration, all of which will be beneficial for Scotland.

43:50And I cannot fathom how the Labour Party doesn't just face up to the reality and say, this has been a disaster. On that, I agree with you. However, where I think it doesn't help you is the fact that even those who voted to leave the European Union who now feel it was a disaster and who feel it in their lives that it may be a disaster. Is there not a danger from your perspective that people are basically thinking, well, my God, if it was that hard and that damaging for us to leave that union with the European Union, which you support, then leaving this other more entrenched, more enduring union might be even more chaotic, even harder.

44:30And just on that, you haven't, to my mind, you still haven't answered some pretty fundamental questions about currency, about the reserves, about military, about all the really detailed questions that weren't properly answered in the referendum. Well, I set out some of our responses on those questions just a few weeks ago as I marshaled how we need to argue the case for Scottish independence, which I think is now an ever greater urgency for Scotland because of analysis of the comparative economic performance of the United Kingdom. United Kingdom standards of living have not increased in 15 years.

45:08They're flat as a pancake. and they've been made worse by the decision on the European Union. I want to address that. I want to improve people's standards of living. That's what we're supposed to be in politics to do. And becoming a member of the European Union would help us in that respect. And that argument has got to be advanced. So there are opportunities that come out of that cooperation with the European Union that will be strong for Scotland as an independent member. Why don't you change your name? Because part of the other problem is that what Farage represents is nationalism. and in your heart you don't like his sort of nationalism but you're a nationalist party.

45:44What I would set out is, and this goes back to really very early points that we talked about with Rory about the political position of the SNP. The SNP is a moderate left of centre civic political party that believes in welcoming individuals into our society, believes in the cohesion of our communities, believes in acting in the collective and common interests of people in Scotland. And none of that is what Nigel Farage believes in. None of it whatsoever. So we're the antithesis of reform and we'll continue to say that. Call yourself the Scottish European Party. Scottish European Integration Party.

46:22Well, I think we're quite well known as the Scottish National Party and very comfortable in that. John, one of the things that, of course, terrifies me is you pointing out that it's close to 50-50. And my experience with the Brexit referendum that almost more damaging than the way the vote went is what happens when you take a population into a knife-edge vote, where almost half the population is on one side and almost half the other. And it creates incredible fissures and divisions in society as the foundation for your project. I mean, it's not like the vote for independence in South Sudan, which was sort of 96 % or other independence referendums in Eastern Europe, which often went well into the 90s.

47:01This is something that will leave many, many people, any people in Scotland feeling bereft, feeling that they've been cut off from what I feel, which is that I can feel proud to be Scottish and proud to be British and proud to be European, and that I actually quite like a world of open identities, different identities, instead of shutting them off. And this is where I slightly agree with Alistair. One of the things I hate about Nigel Farage is this sort of shut down, get rid, become smaller mentality. And that's what I'm frightened of in the Scottish movement too, that it's closing down all these other ways in which, as Alistair says, you're turning up in London at a time when so many people in England are celebrating Scotland's victory in a way that we don't celebrate Germany's victory.

47:51But none of that euphoria would be changed by independence. But what I'm talking about, Rory, is a vision of a Scotland that's actually outward looking, that is reaching out to other communities, is establishing partnerships with Europe. That's what I'm talking about. That's what I want to make sure is the Scotland of the future, an outward looking, compassionate country. And as I look at the United Kingdom, as I look at the prevailing political direction, and I don't see anything that is interrupting this. I don't see any direction of travel in the rest of the United Kingdom that is swimming against this particular tide because the Labour Party, the Conservatives and Farage are all largely in the same direction of travel and I think Scotland wants a different outlook and that's what I'm going to give Scotland the chance to take that opportunity in the elections in May next year.

48:45I saw you not long before the 2024 election and my sense was, without giving any way secrets, that you were sick to the back teeth of having to deal with the Tory government and really looking forward to a Labour government, or at least to a different government. What was your sense of dealing with the Tories over the many years that you did and has it changed for the better? My experience, obviously I dealt with a number of UK governments, not for very long the Blair government, but the Brown government, then the Cameron and Clyde government, the Cameron and his own government, the May government Johnson government Trust?

49:20Yes You got in there on that 46 days Yes Well actually I'll give you a laugh I was sitting on a conference call with the then Chief Secretary of the Treasury with other finance ministers across the United Kingdom on the day she resigned and the meeting was at one o 'clock and we're on it was a virtual meeting and we're talking away and I looked at I got this flash on my phone saying Prime Minister to make a statement at 1.30 and I thought interesting and then there was the treasury were talking away about issues in the public finances then suddenly the treasury went mute camera went off and the chief said to come and said i think we'll have to stop the meeting there's something happening and that was the meeting over and she was out by half past one so i witnessed it all and then started this this the sunat government i always felt that there was a productive way of working with the brown government the um Cameron Clegg government, the Theresa May government, which was reasonable.

50:17I never felt disrespected in those discussions. I might not have got what I wanted, but I didn't feel disrespected as a representative of a different government. I felt disrespected by the Boris Johnson, you know, let's trust it wasn't around for very long, and SUNAC governments. SUNAC as well? Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, definitely. Terrible. and the conduct of the then Secretary of State for Scotland was deeply damaging to intergovernmental relations. And you're right, I signalled to the now Prime Minister during the election campaign, we met at one of the DD commemoration events and I made it clear to Keir Starmer that if he was to be successful, which I thought he would be, he could rely on a professional, cooperative, collaborative relationship.

51:08Again, accepting that you can't agree on everything, different priorities, different issues, but we'd engage substantively. And that's broadly been the experience that I've had, although I think that's changing just now. I think that's changing because we've got an election in May. That's why it's changing. Not because they're in more political difficulty than they were. Well, it may well be that that's a factor, but I think it's to do with the election in May. Let me lean into that a little bit. But what do you think is the difference between the way that the Cameron Clegg coalition would have dealt with you, which was the government I first came into, compared to the way that the Starmer government deals with you?

51:48Well, I think I saw much of those similarities once the Starmer government came into office. So I think for most of the time in the Starmer government, I would equate that way of working to be similar to the way of working of the Cameron Clegg government. And indeed, I can think of a couple of tangible and practical examples where good collaborative working between the Scottish and United Kingdom governments has got some issues that were very, very tricky sorted out. And I welcome that and applaud that. I think that climate feels less likely just now. I think it's been a noticeable change in the language and the approach and the interaction.

52:29I think quite a lot of it goes back to the change of Secretary of State for Scotland, if I'm blunt about it. And I think that's where the tonal shift has come from. And I think that's something we have to be conscious of. Give us a sense on that, because that's very important to you. And you mentioned that also with the last Secretary of State for Scotland. What, in your experience, makes for a good Secretary of State for Scotland and a bad Secretary of State for Scotland? I think this goes back to the role of the Secretary of State for Scotland pre-devolution. and it was always a subject of great debate.

53:02Is the Secretary of State for Scotland Scotland's man in the cabinet or the cabinet's man in Scotland? And invariably with the exception of one individual I think it's always been a man if I'm correct about that. I think that's what it comes down to. Are you trying to fix things on Scotland's behalf or are you trying to fix Scotland? And I think we're now in a mode of trying to fix Scotland and the electorate will decide on that in May as opposed to trying to fix Scotland's interests in the Cabinet. Vicious attack on Douglas Alexander. Fern of Alice Thand, feud on the leading podcast. I spoke at the Cosler Conference the day after you and Douglas where I got the sense that you'd made a much more political speech than you intended to.

53:47No. No? Okay. I made the speech I intended to make. Did you? Okay. You do sometimes go a bit political. One of the things, John, that always surprises me is that you're such a... I'm a politician after all. So my family has to increase my mother's, although it's increased my father. And one of the things that surprised me, I've always seen you as a very sort of amiable, good-natured fellow. But when you won against Murdo Fraser and Liz Smith, who were my friends and conservatives out there, your acceptance speech wasn't quite as sort of gracious as I was expecting. I'm not sure your mother would have approved.

54:22I can't think of what an airside. would have said on that occasion. I think you sort of won and then decided to take this opportunity to put the boot into what they'd done in office. Perhaps I might have, what they've done in office, but it would be demonstrably generous in spirit. I think that's not my memory. Have you ever done things in your career that as you've done them you thought, I'm not sure my mum would approve of this? I suppose I've reflected, and I said this in my acceptance speech as first Minister. I think I would have been viewed as being a pretty bullish minister on the government benches and certainly a pretty bullish backbencher when I spent a year on the backbenches after I left office.

55:08And this struck me during my time out of government where I actually spent more time talking to members of other parties than I had for a long time. You're very busy when you're in government you don't always have time to talk to lots of other people in other parties and I had that time when I was on the back benches and I said to parliament that I recognised in leading a minority government I was going to have to build bridges with people and I was going to have to bring people together and I've consciously so that that is that is an element of my approach which I think is different now that I'm first minister of Scotland that I've got to try to bring people together and if I give you an example of that immediately before my acceptance speech as First Minister in May of 2024.

55:54The Liberal Democrat leader made a speech in which he said the votes of his party were available to bring down the government if everybody else wanted to do so. And then I spoke to accept office. Nine months later, the Liberal Democrats voted for the government's budget. And I took enormous personal satisfaction out of that because I felt we had engaged properly. They didn't have to do that. They were under no obligation to do it. But because we had acted properly and effectively, with a generosity, a spirit, we managed to bring people to a point of agreement. And I think that's what you have to do in politics.

56:33And it's particularly acute when you're leading a minority government. You've got to bring people to points of agreement. It often feels as though the big challenge in modern politics is how do you get the balance between what's going to win you votes and what's the right thing to do. And I guess the way I'm thinking about it at the moment is that Labour clearly decided that the way to win votes before the election was to rule out raising any of the major taxes. And they now find themselves probably thinking maybe the right thing to do were to raise some of those taxes. They ruled them out. How do you navigate your way through this?

57:04When have you got it right? When have you got it wrong? Looking back over your full career, when could you have been braver? When have you had to make political calculations? I think we've had different parliamentary formations as a government. We started off very much as a minority. We ended up a period as a majority government for five years. We've had two periods of minority government, one of which has also involved a coalition agreement with the Greens. And I think the importance I would attach to bringing people together in politics cannot be overstated. So I think actually reaching out beyond your party to try to create common ground with others is a key ingredient in political success.

57:55And I think that also helps in addressing, I think, what underlies your question, Rory, which is we face some really big challenges and sometimes you need longer than a one parliamentary term to succeed in that endeavour. So if I want to succeed in eradicating child poverty, I don't think I'll have done it by May of next year. I think I'll have made significant progress in that direction. It will be substantially lower than the rest of the United Kingdom, but it will not be accomplished. But by setting out to people the progress that we've made by collaboration and cooperation with others is, for me, a powerful message to share with the wider public in Scotland.

58:34You twice tried to resign and I wonder whether that was because you have this special circumstance with a wife who's got a serious illness. Yeah, I tried when I was a government minister to step down a couple of times. My wife has multiple sclerosis. She's an incredible woman. She's determined, despite the constraints that multiple sclerosis creates for her, to not allow that to get in the way of her living a full and active life. and she does unbelievably well. And I can't adequately express just my admiration for how resolute she is. But sometimes I kind of think, look, she could do with you being around the house a bit more just physically to be there to make life a bit easier.

59:26And that was one of the factors that weighed in my mind when Nicola Sturgeon stood down as First Minister. I had a queue of people saying to me, you must stand and I said no I'm going to I've done this for a long time it's time to give my family priority particularly my wife and I decided not to I would have become the first minister if I'd stood at that stage there's no doubt about that in my mind but I actively decided not to do so things didn't work out for my party we faced an existential threat to our survival as a party I think and I felt having spent my entire adult life trying to build up the arguments for Scottish independence and build up the Scottish National Party I just couldn't walk on by and I discussed it with my wife and and you know Elizabeth was just or just as magnificent as she's about absolutely everything and she just said to me you know you know what you've got to do and and I I will I will When I became First Minister, I expressed my forever gratitude for the sacrifices she's prepared to make to allow me to do what I'm doing.

1:00:38But I can't disguise the fact that I'm constantly thinking about Elizabeth's well-being. I'm her husband. Of course, I will be thinking about Molly's well-being all the time. but she would also be saying to me just get on with it don't bother with me, just get on with it and so I'm very conscious of Elizabeth's circumstances but equally profoundly grateful to her that she just basically tells me to get on with it And my final question you and I are both very fond of the Hebrides and I know you're regular to visit Tyree, my dad gave Rob but sticking in the Hebrides do you not think the world would be a better place if Mary MacLeod had stayed in Lewis and not gone to New York and met Fred Trump?

1:01:34Well I understand that Mary MacLeod regularly returned to Tong in the Western Isles in Lewis as many many many Hebrideans do come back home and so I'm not surprised that Mary McLeod was any different. Why wouldn't she want to come back to the majesty of the Hebrides? I get that, but that wasn't my question. It was whether the world would be a better place if she hadn't have gone off and made Donald Trump. Lots of things have happened in the interviewing years about which you and I can do nothing, Alistair. But when President Trump came to Scotland in the summer, I asked the Registrar General of Scotland if she could find anything in our national records that would be of unique significance to Donald Trump.

1:02:22And the Registrar General was able to find... A gold bar. No, no. She was able to find, in the 1853 parish register of the parish of Tong in Lewis, a handwritten entry by the parish minister in the most beautiful handwriting, tribute to Scottish education, Alistair, the entry of Mary MacLeod's grandparents' marriage in that parish record. So we got that copied and presented to President Trump to mark his visit to Scotland. And that's before compulsory registration took place within Scotland. So this is a really unique record. And the fact that National Records of Scotland hold on to as many of the parish records as they have access to.

1:03:10so the Church of Scotland records pre there being a system put these to national records and there it was and I'm told I'm told it was very much appreciated. Well John full of admiration for the way that a question that was obviously about what you think of Donald Trump ended up with a lovely history of Scotland's keeping of national records. Well there you are Thank you. Thank you so much for coming Have a great day. Bye bye

1:03:41Well, there we are. So you're going to be in big trouble, Alistair, because Anasawa, the entire Labour movement, and I'll be in big trouble because all my Tory friends in Scotland will think we did not give them a hard enough time. Probably. But then we will have Anasawa on and you might give him a bit of a hard time, but I might give him less of a hard time. But look, it was obvious when we got into education, you rightly pointed out straight away, this is going to become PISA figure that, PISA figure this, and it sort of goes around in a circle. I actually... It's a bit of a problem for Labour, isn't it?

1:04:11Because when you're attacking the Scottish nationalists, you say you're doing rubbish in the pizza scales. And then when you're talking to Michael Gove, you have to be like, pizza scales don't matter. No, because look, that is not true. Michael Gove was dissembling Perish the Thought about the pizza tables. But the thing about what I found, I think he's a very likable guy and I'm not going to get away from that. You love that Scottish voice, don't you? You're one of those people who thinks that an advertisement done in a Scottish accent will make you buy the product. Well, all the marketers tell you that's true.

1:04:43Sort of reassuring. But this is, look, as I've told you many times, some of my Labour friends think that I'm far too fond of these guys. But I like the fact that he's been around for 25 years, plugging away, doing the same thing. And you also like the fact, as you become increasingly left-wing, that he's a massive lefty who's all for putting up the Welsh taxes. I don't think he's that left-wing. I don't think he's that left-wing. I think he knows. He thinks that the Labour Party's gone too far to the right. Yeah, and actually Labour friends will be pissed off I didn't sort of push back a bit more on that.

1:05:12I think it's interesting that he has come through. Of the three of them, it's really weird, they all begin with S. Salmond, Sturgeon, Swinney. Salmond, big beast, sort of huge character. Nicola Sturgeon, first female Scotland First Minister and absolutely dominant in the debate in Scotland during the period that she was First Minister. And he does have a very different style. I think it's incredible because in some ways, you would have thought it's the antithesis of what works in the social media age. When people criticize Kiyosama, I guess many of them criticize him for being a little bit like what you see with John Swinney.

1:05:50But with John Swinney, it works. John Swinney being a little bit, dare I say, sometimes dull and focusing on being very soft-spoken and very careful is really working for him. and somehow he's able to run in an age of kind of populism and chaos as a safe pair of hands which is what people thought starmer would be able to do present himself as a safe pair of hands why isn't it working for starmer but it is working for swinney well that cosler the scottish local government conference that i mentioned that was that john curtis the pollster did a presentation and he pointed out what seemed to be really interesting is that the scottish government seems to do a pretty good job at getting credit for things that it does and not getting too much blame for the things that are going badly.

1:06:34So even though public services are largely devolved, schools, hospitals, transport, police. And there are big problems in schools and hospitals. Big problems. Even though that's the case, they somehow managed to keep hold of the idea in the public mind that a lot of this is because of Tory austerity, labour economy, national economy not growing, etc. And I think they sort of get away with that. And it is a point, they've been in power for 18 years, that is a long time. You would have thought they'd get booted out. And you wouldn't have thought in the modern era of Zora Mamdani and whatnot that steady, slow, slightly dull was the way to do it, but it's working for you.

1:07:09I found it very interesting today. I think it's charming. I don't think even he would describe himself as a kind of firecracker orator. It's not just about oratory, it's about how you think about things and how you reflect. Look, whenever we got into he said, she said on policy and delivery, it got a bit dull. But that's just the nature of those debates and the way that they're conducted. But I think when he was reflecting about himself and about his family and his wife, I am absolutely mesmerized by the fact that he doesn't know how his dad voted in elections or the rest of them. Good on his dad.

1:07:44All the way through to the age of 93, just been resisting his son playing a straight bat again and again. No, I'm not going to tell you. I think his dad is a Labour supporter unionist. That's quite, quite. Who loves cricket. That's very possible. Maybe we should get his dad on. Yeah, get his dad on. 93. Maybe when he says his dad's incredibly hardworking, maybe he's a gentle, moderate Tory who believes in small business and hard work. No, he's definitely not a Tory. Definitely not a Tory. But no, I hope people enjoy that. And it was very different to the interview with Nicola Sturgeon. We didn't really get into Nicola, did we?

1:08:16But I think that what I sense, this is where he's quite a skillful politician and where maybe he uses what you define as his straight back dullness. He clearly was not going to go down the path of talking about Alex Salmond. No, or Nicholas Salmond or Donald Trump. Exactly. And we could easily have sort of just kept going with the same questions and he played the same straight back. Very interesting question. Look, if Scotland became independent and he was the leader of an independent country, would he stand up to Trump or wouldn't he? We don't have any clue. Would he follow the Starmer track or the Mark Rutter track or the Mark Carney track?

1:08:48We don't know. I mean, that's one of the issues that I have that obviously, you know, I don't want to replay this. I don't see this project because I think it would be so divisive and damaging for Scotland. divisive because of 50-50, damaging because, as you pointed out, all this stuff about leaving the European Union showed us how complicated and painful and brutal it is. And Scotland's trade with England is far bigger than the United Kingdom's trade with Europe. I mean, these economies are pretty much one and the same. And I think part of the reason he's got away with it, despite 18 years of not always performing that well, is because there is sort of 30 % of the Scottish population that is just emotionally nationalist and they can bank that.

1:09:36It's a bit like Trump with his base. Anyway, I guess we will both have to stand by for your Tory friends and my Labour friends in Scotland saying you're just a pair of wimps and call yourself proper interviewers, blah, blah, blah. But I enjoyed talking to him. I loved reliving the football with him. And we will be having Anasawa on because I guess the only other possibility for the First Minister of Scotland after the May elections is Anasawa. I can't see the reform lot doing it, even though they're doing far better in the polls than they should be. Nobody knows who any of them are apart from Nigel Farage.

1:10:07We were talking just to finish, just to set the frame. It looks like the election is going to be one group of people, Labour conservatives, saying this is a choice between union and Scottish independence. And the SNP saying not so much this is a choice for independence, but there's a choice between parties working with reform and we're running against reform so they will be running a pro-unionist campaign labor and conservatives he will be running an anti-reform campaign i'm sure the union would be hard i think they'll be running a campaign on the snp's record and on better ideas on on domestic policy and one of the articles i can't remember who wrote it one of the articles i read in hollywood magazine last night was a column suggesting that the snp essentially for this campaign their message is going to be a version of Project Fear that they so condemned in the referendum.

1:10:58About reform. About reform. Yeah. Yeah, and it was a very, very, very interesting piece, which if Mandy Rhodes would like to send me a link, we could put in the newsletter. Which will put huge pressure, presumably, on the conservative Labour leaders to rule out a coalition's reform. Well, I don't care about Labour doing that. But the problem there is that Anasawa is going to find it very difficult to become a first minister without reform, and that's what they'll keep pointing out. Some of the polls at the moment suggest SNP first, reform second, Labour third, or in terms of seats. Now, I think Labour, I think Anastas is a very, very good campaigner.

1:11:30And if he can somehow free himself, very, very difficult, but free himself from what they feel is a bit of a dead weight of the Labour nationally dragging them down, I can see him fighting a very, very good campaign. And ultimately, who do reform have? I follow this stuff pretty closely, but I couldn't tell you who a Scottish reform politician is. They've got one MP, one MSP who defected from the Tories. So we'll see. Well, let's see. This is not the last time we'll be talking about Scotland. No, definitely not. You can guarantee that on this podcast. And as soon as the draw for the World Cup's made, will you be booking your flights?

1:12:03Yeah, you and I will be going to Canada together. I'll be carrying your pipes. I'll be smuggling them into the stadium for you. See you later. See you later. Bye-bye.

1:12:16Okay, so here's a glimpse of what's to come. If it sparks something unexplainable, then you can join us every Tuesday and Thursday for new episodes of The Rest of Science. I will figure it out together. You mentioned earlier that a cup of water is like a rock smoothie, right? Because you've got rocks dissolved in it, magnesium and calcium. I would go a step further though and say that a glass of water is actually just a glass of lava. Right, right, go on. Because I've talked about this before and I bring it up whenever I can. Ice is a rock. Sure. because, well, hold on. Ice is a mineral because a mineral is just a inorganic material that is solid and has a definite crystal structure, which ice does.

1:13:04Water is important for life, but it's inorganic actually. It would exist here or whether there was life or not. And what that then means is that a cube of ice is made of a mineral. So it's a monomineralic rock. So melted ice is molten rock, lava. So water is lava. I'm here for this. And this is not a joke. Ice won the mineral cup back in 2015, I believe. Like some geologists all voted on their favorite mineral and ice finally got the recognition it deserves. Got the prize. Yeah. I mean, sure. I'm happy with that classification. If the rock people say it so, then I'm happy with it. They also move the same way.

1:13:46I mean, when lava gets spurted out of a volcano, It uses the way that it moves and behaves is exactly the same. What, like the fluid dynamics of lava? The fluid dynamics of lava is the same as water at that stage, yeah. A bit later on when it cools down, then it changes. Is it more like ice? More like ice. There's a transition phase where it's more like toothpaste, where it needs a certain amount of sheer forces in order for it to flow. But that would be analogous to like slush maybe? Maybe, yeah.

1:14:18As the year draws to a close, it's time for our annual reminder that even in an age of political noise and division, one national consensus still stands firm. Roast potatoes. Oh, God, all this British stuff. If you're wondering, however, what to buy, the politically obsessed person in your life this Christmas, might I gently suggest a year's membership to The Rest is Politics Plus? It's the thoughtful kind of present. Ad-free listening, bonus episodes, early access to Q &As, book discounts, and perhaps I think most interesting, it's our mini-series available only to members focusing on the world's most complex characters and topics.

1:15:00We've already explored Rupert Murdoch and JD Vance, and we're doing many more subjects to come. So think of this as a civilised gift to allow families to disagree agreeably over Christmas. What could be nicer? And if you've left it until Christmas Eve, as I fear I often do, the great thing is it's digital. No queues, wrapping or panic. The membership lands neatly in their inbox on Christmas Day. So spread a little political peace and goodwill. Head to therestispolitics.com and click Gifts.