58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza

27:33But I'm not trying to sell the point that somehow everything will be okay. I'm being cheeky and I shouldn't keep pushing too much. But again, the echo again was Liam Fox would always say, don't worry, we're not going into this agreement with Europe from a cold start. We've been part of the European Union for 40 years. It's all going to be much easier than you think. We know what these relationships are. And it turned out, unfortunately, that politics is very difficult. Spain will be very difficult on letting you in. Spain have said unequivocally again in fairness the previous administration at a time but the Conservative Prime Minister at a time said look we're not going to look to veto we're not going to look to veto Scotland and of course the situation in Scotland we say is an internal issue here with the UK and the situation in Catalonia is an internal situation for the Spanish government to have to deal with I'm not saying to you and haven't said throughout the course of this interview by the way there aren't going to have to be challenges we're going to have to work our way through Ultimately, though, having worked through those challenges, and I believe we absolutely can, the prize is great.

28:32The prize is that we get to make decisions for ourselves. But not only that, just look at countries that are similar size to Scotland. Look at Ireland, for example, across the water. Look at your Norways and your Denmarks. And you can see countries similar size to Scotland, similar population to Scotland. And having done incredibly well and continues to do incredibly well and actually have higher productivity lower inequality higher average income than the uk but you do accept that the brexit the debate in the within the uk as a whole whereas then i agree with you i think most people now consider it to be a disaster so that what's happening within the debate in scotland i feel is you've kind of had independence which has carried your strategy for a lot of the time you've been in power and now there's much greater focus on the on the domestic stuff and on delivery, where you have been struggling on education, you have been struggling on health, you have been struggling on some of the issues for which you have direct responsibility.

29:29I don't think that's the reason why we're facing challenge. So I think on each of these issues, I could point you to, you know, happy to... And you're not just going to blame Westminster, which is the normal way that you explain why things go wrong. No, but I also disagree with your premise. It's not what we normally do. There's challenges, of course, because Westminster still controls largely the economic levers, the biggest challenge that everybody is facing in the country, whether it's in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland or Wales, is the cost of living crisis. I'm afraid you can try as much as you want, but that is not created by the Scottish government and the cost of living crisis lands very much at the door of a Conservative party that has imposed 13 and a half years of austerity and took a torpedo to the economy through the mini budget.

30:06So look, I accept the point that the Scottish government, of course, has responsibility for a number of devolved areas. But let me just challenge back. In every single policy area, you're going to have some level of challenge, but we can equally point to where we've made significant, significant progress whether it's education and reducing the attainment gap for example, more young people from the poorest and more deprived areas going to university than ever before is pretty good. Our health service facing challenge for sure still continues to be not just the best performing in the department but the only country that hasn't had junior doctor strikes or nurses strikes I could point to, you know, every single I could come back with stats I suppose my point in raising that was so you could challenge back and forth.

30:48I'm much more comfortable in a policy space and talking in a policy space and that's why when it comes to general election, yeah, I think it's going to be a challenge. We're going to face our biggest challenge in comparison to general elections over the last decade. Though I have to say before 2014, of course, general elections were always a difficult election for the SNP. But for the last decade, this will probably be the most difficult one in the decade. But as much as we can talk about policy, because I think there's a huge policy vacuum at the moment, I don't see much difference between what the Conservatives are proposing, what Labour are proposing.

31:20The one big policy area of difference that Labour have is the Green Prosperity Fund, and they seem to be rolling back on that and talk that even by the time this podcast goes out, it might well be in the dustbin. So I'm very comfortable talking about policy. I want it to be in the policy area. My biggest challenge, to be frank in the last 10 months, has been the fact that there's issues that are out with my control that have undoubtedly dominated, and therefore we've not been able to talk about policy as much as I would like. Okay. Now you've had this one thrown at you before, I'm going to throw it again.

31:48Kate Forbes, you were a transport minister and the trains were never on time. When you were justice secretary, the police were stretched to breaking point. I've heard this line before, yes. And as health minister, we've got record high waiting times. And that was brutal. Right. And that's from a colleague that you served with. So I think we, as you say, we can back, we can back backwards and forwards on stats about how many people are waiting lists and, you know, the going down the educational rankings and so forth. But I guess my point is that, do you not worry that you've come at the end of this amazing Salmon period, then this extraordinary Sturgeon period, and you're like, again, a bit of a fag end of this SNP hegemony?

32:25I've been called lots of things before. I think you've called me now Farage and the fag end. So tell me a bit, and before you answer that, I want to pin you down on your assessment of Salmon briefly and your assessment of Nicola Sturgeon briefly. to do all those things briefly look I think in an election contest all of us will say things that we regret and we think about how we should have phrased it and not phrased it and I think that I mean I'm not sure if Kate does you could probably ask her the question but whether she does I suspect she probably does because in effect that was the moment I think she lost leadership campaign and you feel she was trashing the whole government with that yeah and look at the party and I know the party because I've been a son of this party for as long as I can remember they do not like yellow on yellow fire you know the party just does not like that and did not appreciate that.

33:08So look, Kate and I, we were messaging last night, actually, get along very well under a bridge after a leadership contest. In terms of your more general question around the kind of natural political cycle and political gravity that we all have to face, look, my job is to try to fight against that. And I'm not going to pretend at all that it's going to be easy. I think this general election will be a challenge for the SNP. My intention is to make sure in Scotland we're the largest party and we win that general election, but we're facing a challenge. And I don't think it's because there's a huge enthusiasm to vote for Keir Starmer.

33:42I don't think that people really know what it is he stands for or what his policies are. There is just a strong motivation to get rid of that shower down in Westminster. And Scotland, that's a pretty strong motivation for a lot of people. And that's why I think it's important to say, and I'll say this, look, actually, Keir Starmer is going to be the next PM. I think anybody can tell me or pretend that won't be the case. In Scotland, we've got an opportunity to vote for a party that you believe in, a party that values the lines with yours. And actually, even if you don't agree with all of our policies, when the SNP is well represented in Westminster, we make sure that Scotland's voice is heard.

34:18Well, definitely. I'm determined to get your Alex and Nicola. Okay, sure. Before I do that, before I do that, just on this point about, so this sort of new strategy appeared recently when he suddenly said, Keir Starmer is definitely going to be the Prime Minister. And it follows all sorts of different twists and turns in your kind of top-line messaging about Labour, about the Tories, about the general election. But the fact is, if Scotland stays the same, and I accept you're facing a challenge, but let's just say Scotland stays the same in terms of politics. In the rest of the country, Keir Starmer has to get the biggest swing than Clement Attlee in 1945 and Tony Blair in 1997.

34:51So it's not true that if people vote for the SNP in Scotland in the same numbers, that Keir Starmer is definitely going to be Prime Minister. That is a massive swing he has to get. he's going to get a massive swing this is going to be the collapse of the Conservative Party potentially even an existential threat I hope it's an existential threat given the damage that they've caused this country they're going to get routed up and down the country and they deserve it this is not a normal election in fact if you go back and look over the decades of how many times Scotland has influenced a general election you can count it on we don't even need your one hand to count it on and that was when we had by the way way more seats than we have at the moment So again, let's not pretend otherwise.

35:31Of course, every vote does count. This is my point, is that Scotland's votes do count. Now, Scotland could end up sending a whole raft of Labour MPs who will do nothing other than stand up for Keir Starmer. Michael Shanks, rather than MPs, a classic example. But they'll stand up for Scotland. No, no, he said, well, let's take the vote and get the guys a ceasefire. It's a perfect example. Michael Shanks said, I'll stand up for Scotland. His leader in Scotland, Anas, supported the ceasefire. What did Michael Shanks do? Didn't vote for a ceasefire, because what he did was what Keir Starmer told him to do.

36:00And that is what you'll get with Labour MPs or you get SNP MPs who, whether you like our policies, sometimes don't like all our policies, agree with some of them, don't agree with all of them. We always bang the drum for Scotland. Stephen Flynn does it every single week. Scotland, Scotland, Scotland. And that's what you get with SNP MPs. You've talked a lot about productivity and said, I think I agree with you, that there's no clear vision coming out of the government or the opposition in terms of how they're going to turn this around. What is your vision on how you're going to turn around productivity in Scotland?

36:29So I just did an hour speech on this at Clansgrove University on my vision for industrial policy. And a lot of it is centred on the huge potential we've got from the transition to net zero. And just a minute, what is productivity in Scotland? How does it rank compared to productivity in England? Where's it been for the last 17 years? So productivity has increased at a faster rate than the rest of the UK in the last decade, but it's still far too low. It's nowhere near where we need it to be. and for me the unlocking of that And when you say it increased by faster amount it's still tiny Yeah it's still I'm accepting that by the way I'm not disagreeing with you it's far too low than it should be and I go back to my point are fiscal monetary levers largely controlled by the UK but look I accept also You think productivity is defined by the fiscal and monetary levers?

37:12You think Look it can often be by the fact that we don't have for example if I took the example of transitioning to net zero the way we unlock that is largely actually how the United States in Europe are doing it. You know, you need to be able to compete not with the quantum of the Inflation Reduction Act or European Green Deal Investment Partnership plan, sorry. What you're going to have to do is put some sort of subsidy up like actually the Labour Party seemed to be suggesting and now rolling back on to unlock that investment. Most of my meetings in London have been... So you mean you want to put tens of billions of pounds into investing in some green future and you're going to have to borrow it?

37:48That's absolutely part of it. And you're frustrated because you can't borrow tens of billions of pounds. We can't borrow even close to tens of billions of pounds. You think Britain would be able to suddenly borrow that money in its current financial situation? Yes, I think they should absolutely prioritise that. Remember, of course, politics is about choices and you can make those choices when you're in government. Now, whether you have to borrow, whether you have to look at taxation, in Scotland we've taken a different route on taxation where those who earn the most, like first ministers, pay a little bit more because we need to invest in our public services.

38:21Whatever choices you have to make. You have to look at the longer term. Your instinct is, if you borrowed more or taxed more, got more money on the government, push that money in the way that Europe or the US has done, you'd be able to get productivity turned around. I don't doubt that. It would have a significant impact on our economy, including in terms of productivity. I don't doubt it for a minute. I mean, again, the meetings I've had throughout the entire course of yesterday with some of the biggest investors in the world, many of them have a footprint in Scotland already, or Black Rocks, JPMorgan, Morgan Stanley, Barclays.

38:51all big investors globally and all of them have an interest in investing in Scotland due to the climate renewable potential or difficulty and there's things that the Scottish government absolutely can do and we have some recommendations from an investor panel but ultimately the key message that keeps coming back is well look why would we invest in the UK when we're getting subsidy incentives in the United States or in European capitals I'm curious why Rory's making the face I'm making the face because it doesn't sound to me like productivity I mean, it sounds to me like these people are saying we can get free money from these other governments.

39:26But what I was expecting you to do is much more what you hear from Andy Burnham or Andy Street, which is laying out concrete detail plans on how to improve productivity in their regions. And I was expecting you to talk much more about skills. I was expecting you to talk much more about specific forms of industrial strategy. this idea that somehow what's holding back productivity is the inability to find tens of billions of pounds which incidentally I don't think Britain could borrow I don't think we're in the financial situation to do that in the sense that was the Liz Truss lesson we're not the world's reserve currency we don't have the freedom to do those things Look productivity of course undoubtedly is linked to skills and we just had a skills review about a number of skills reviews which we're implementing and actually again when I come back to this whole point of my trip to London for example the entire reason why we're trying to attract or one of the big incentives to attract investment into Scotland is that ecosystem that exists.

40:17So if you look at some of the work that's been done by Sandy Begbie, well-known Scottish financial enterprise, it talks about that ecosystem. Scotland's advantage as a small country means that you can bring industry, higher education, further education and government together in order to try to deal with some of these skills issues and grow your own, make sure you've got the right workforce for the industry of the future. What we've also said, and this is something the Scottish government under the SNP, I don't think I said before this budget, is we're going to have to look at the size of the public sector in Scotland.

40:47We're going to have to think about how we begin to make efficiencies and reduce the size and the scale of the public sector. So we've, look, I can talk to you in this podcast in detail about what I think we can do, not just to help productivity, to boost economic growth, because I think economic growth is hugely important for a purpose. And that purpose is to reinvest back into our public services and to help us have those targeted measures to reduce poverty, because poverty is still far too endemic right across the UK, including, of course, here in Scotland. So look, I can lay out in huge amounts of detail some of our plans around productivity.

41:19If you want to do another episode, we can go just on our economic plans. But I suppose I go back to the point I made to Alistair, which is, look, I'm far more comfortable talking about policy. A lot of the difficulty I think my party's faced in the last 10 months is it's issues that are not to do with policy that have been distracting us and causing us some challenge. Which brings me back. it's a question that you're desperate to ask well just you know honestly deep down in your heart you've grown up with alex salmon as this huge figure in this smp you've then had nicola sturgeon this huge figure in the smp i sort of feel with your leadership every time it looks like you're just about to get your head above the water you know whether it's whatsapp messages at covid or whether it's the police so alex in a word or a phrase and nicola just give me your assessment.

42:06Yeah, it'd be hard to do a word or phrase. Look, Alex is somebody I looked up to. He was the reason I joined the party. I remember watching his speech about the Iraq war and I heard him speaking in the House of Commons. Although my dad was the ASMP and it was always probably my natural inclination was towards the ASMP, that was the moment I thought, yeah, I want to join that party. And Alex gave me my first job as a minister. Not only that, it encouraged me. I mean, you mentioned my journey into politics you know we had a bid in for question time we didn't get very often bids into question time we didn't have many MPs at the time a handful of MPs and and obviously with the party and government for a few years at that point and there I was as a young 26 year old and he said you're going on question time I said me I said yeah tell him's I was going on you'll be absolutely fine and you know it went fine and went well actually so he gave me a lot of opportunity over the years and so actually I feel if I'm honest with you the breakdown in relationship with Alex is yeah it's a matter of not just regret but I feel quite hurt about it all and how it's all transpired.

43:10Somebody I looked up to now spends a fair bit of his time laying the boot into the SNP and trying to damage me whether it's personally or the SNP and frankly the cause that we both love and I do believe Alex is... Why? Why has he... what have we learnt about his personality from this transition? Or about politics? I don't... again it would be hard for me to answer for Alex and what his motivations are. It feels difficult to think there's anything other than to try to replace the SNP which is never going to happen. But I don't know because Alex I feel could have actually played a role as elder statesman, actually given advice, gone off to do whatever he wanted to do.

43:53Does he not feel sort of bitter that people were ungrateful, they didn't give him enough respect, that people sort of turned on him so it's an element of revenge? There may be that. Again, it's hard for me to talk about Alex's motivation. Do you have any connection, contact with him at all? No, I mean, we kind of briefly shook hands and exchanged pleasantries during Winnie Ewing's funeral. But look, I wouldn't go out of my way only because I haven't seen any evidence from either Alex nor the party that he leads that they are interested in anything other than giving the SNP a kicking. And if you believe in independence, giving the largest vehicle that's driving forward independence a kicking every single day and through every single press release, doesn't make sense to me.

44:33It speaks to me to a very ulterior motive. And Nicola? Nicola, I've just got such a deep affection for her and always will. You know, she, to me, is somebody who, first of all, I've always been close to Nicola and her first election that she ever stood, one of the first elections she ever stood for, I guess Mohamed Samar, actually, my dad's office in Politshields in Glasgow Southside. The basement was her election base. so I've known Nicola since I was a young kid so look I always have that deep affection for Nicola, I worry about her to an extent as well, I mean she's dealing with a lot as we know about and I find really sad about how you know the certain elements who are seeking to try to kind of tarnish her reputation when I think about Covid in particular, I worked closely with Nicola throughout the years of the pandemic and I can tell you what nobody in the Scottish Government is saying we've got everything right.

45:29Far from, I'm certain we made mistakes during that really difficult period but I'll tell you without any doubt that Nicola and the rest of the government but particularly Nicola only ever put the interests of the people that she was serving first to try to protect them from harm. Did you ever, when you were kind of rising up through the party, ever worry that it did seem a bit odd that you had the leader and the chief executive of the party as a married couple? Was that not a sort of recipe waiting to go wrong? Look I think in hindsight you could absolutely reflect on that and say, look, should that have been the case?

46:00I think nobody really questioned it because we didn't see it. There was no red flags. There was nothing that seemed to cause us any issues, concerns that were raised at the time. And obviously I can't comment on a live police investigation that will go in the way that it's going to go and conclude in the way it's going to conclude. But ultimately, you know, the party was doing well, was winning under Peter and Nicola. And no, as I say. As a sort of outsider listening, you found yourself in a very unlucky, difficult position. It's not nice to sit with a thing saying, I can't comment on an ongoing police investigation.

46:33It's not the line you would have wanted to. Of course not. Of course not. I don't know if that's a question or statement of the obvious, but yeah, no, of course not. I mean, I was first minister for a couple of weeks and I remember being elected and all the kind of ceremony and pomp that goes with becoming first minister. and we had a couple of weeks of recess, Easter recess coming up. And yep, this was the moment you're going to be able to dominate the news coverage. There'll be no parliamentary. You go out, you set out what it is you stand for, who sums the use of, what is he going to try to advocate for?

47:04And the second day, Peter gets arrested. You know, that's my life for the next day. That's what I mean about every time you hit up there, something hits you. Yeah, I agree. So it has been difficult and it's challenging. But also, I try to remind myself about this every day. I never lose sight of the fact that leading your country is the greatest honour of anybody's life. And not many people at all get the opportunity. And it's kind of like being the captain of the football team, right? I mean, it's your home country. It's the country you love. It's the country you're raising your kids in. And you get to lead it.

47:31And every single day, for all the challenges, there's some really good moments. Alistair, First Minister, let's take a quick break.

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48:12To bring you to international affairs and I guess personal things, One of the things that you've talked about very movingly was the experience of your wife's family being stuck in Galveston. I wonder whether we could take you back to that, how that felt, what you learned from that experience, how that's helped you understand international affairs through that lens. I think it was the most difficult few weeks of our lives. And I'll never forget waking up that morning and seeing the messages from Nadia's mum. and I think once we understood what had happened on the 7th of October those abhorrent terror attacks that took place and the extent of them we knew the retribution would be and the retaliation would be huge.

48:52And she was in Gaza City or Khan Yunus? No, she was in Derbila which is in between Gaza City and Khan Yunus it's kind of centre of Gaza and the family had been going I mean Nadia had gone every year to Gaza before the blockade and then post the blockade they weren't able to get in often but essentially my father-in-law wanted to go see his 93 year old mother she'd caught Covid a number of months back and she's pretty frail and obviously continues to be very very frail so we wanted to go see her for one last time and the 7th of October happened and every day for the four weeks that they were trapped in there was unbelievably intense getting messages and calls when we thought they were hit and there was times when they phoned me to say their goodbyes, my mother-in-law telling me to take care of her girls.

49:45And what was their experience? What did they describe? What did they see? I mean, it's actually very difficult for us to get reporting out of Gaza. What was it like for them? So you have to imagine every single day they were saying that there was just a constant buzz of drones, a constant every single moment, every single day. So you're always on edge immediately because you don't know if there's going to be a strike. or not and then of course you would get strikes and there's one time they phoned me at I had just done my conference speech and it was a couple of hours later and my mother-in-law phoned me to say they'd been hit the house had been hit and she had the smoke everywhere windows have all been blasted smashed doors blasted off the hinges we've been hit I don't know who's alive who's not and I said look mum just take a breather just let's try to assess the situation I don't think you know hopefully you've not been hit.

50:35No, transpired they hadn't, but somebody had been hit nearby. And my mother-in-law tells me that she then, after she phoned back, said, look, everybody's okay, it's not us. But there's an eight-year-old girl from, and they say the house was, you know, 50, 60, 70 metres away. Eight-year-old girl from that blast landed outside their house. And their spine, they say, like, she can't move. She's conscious, but she can't move. And we don't know what to do. And we said, well, come, Mohammed. That's my wife's brother. He's a doctor. Is he still there? He's still there. Mohammed's still there, still working in the hospital where he can.

51:12Separated from his family, actually, but he's still there. And so, you know, that's the kind of things that they would have to deal with. Day to day, they were living with bottles of dirty, salty water. And really, I mean, it was always difficult, but the real difficulty came when the North was evacuated. So all of the extended cousins and aunties and uncles that were in the North, you know, so in this house where there was usually 10 of them suddenly had 100 people in this house. So I think I say it's indescribable. I'm trying to describe what they've told me. I'll never forget actually that, so they arrived back on Bonfire Night and they got back to the UK and obviously picked them up from the airport and went to the house and spent time with them in the evening.

51:52And I remember my father-in-law was chatting to a relative as he'd come at the door and a firework went off and he jumped. And absolutely jumped. And I thought this is going to take you some amount of time, I think, to recover through the trauma of all of this. And how do you feel as a politician on the issue when you've been pretty clear about your position? As you say, Anasawa was pretty clear on a ceasefire. Just give a sense of how you feel about the way Joe Biden has handled this, the way Rishi Sunak has handled this, and the way Keir Starmer has handled this. I think those who have still refused to call for an immediate ceasefire will be seen to be on the wrong side of history on this issue.

52:28I just can't understand it when you, particularly those that are have a close relationship either are able to have the ear of the Israeli government or indeed for example Qatar which we know is influential with Hamas. Every single person that is in that trusted position has to be calling for an immediate ceasefire and doing everything they can behind the scenes to stop the violence. I've never seen this level of death and destruction that has killed so many innocent men women and particularly children and yet the word ceasefire has somehow become almost a dirty, dirty word. As a politician, can you understand why Rishi Sunak and Kir Starmer are not calling for ceasefire?

53:05Truthfully, I can't. Can you answer about it? No, I genuinely can't understand. If Biden's trying to do the influence bit behind the scenes and things... Look, if he's trying to do it behind the scenes, I've just not seen the material effect of it. What has been the material effect or impact? I've not seen levels of restraint from the Israeli government. If this is restraint from the Israeli government, then my goodness, I wouldn't like to see what unrestrained looks like. so you know some people have made this argument to me in the past that we're doing things behind the scenes and I believe that our conversation is going on behind the scenes I'm afraid there has to come a point where you go look they're just not listening to us and we have to begin to exert some public pressure and the fact that the UK and others are not doing that I think is a failure of leadership and as I say I just don't know how much more worse the situation has to get and of course the worry for many of us who are observing this is look there's the immediate issue.

53:59We've got to try to stop the violence, get aid into people who desperately need it, rebuild Gaza. I think the worrying thing is, how do you stop these cycles of violence that you and I have seen throughout the entire course of our lives? And I do believe that until you have meaningful steps towards a Palestinian state, then you're never ever going to see true peace in that region. You've been very generous with your time. I'm thinking about the last couple of times I've seen you. I saw you in a UN General Assembly in New York, where you were doing some great stuff around international development and very pleased to see that you were looking at cash support for people in humanitarian emergencies.

54:36Very progressive and good leadership. Also saw you at the coronation. You were dressed up much more fancy than I was. Well, you were pretty fancy dressed. And I was very pleased to see you at the coronation because you sometimes come across a bit of a Republican and I wondered whether you were softening in any way towards the moment. I think it'd be hard for him not to be there. Yeah, look, my views are known by everybody, including, I suspect, His Majesty, who, by the way, I hold in great respect. Look, I have a duty to do. I'm meant to be the first minister for everybody in Scotland. It would have been outrageous if I had not been at the coronation.

55:14I take my job very seriously, whether it's tending the coronation or having audiences with the king. who I have to say that when it comes to the big issues of the day and you've mentioned climate change has been far ahead of most politicians for a number of years and he and I you know I won't disclose what we talk about obviously in our private audiences but there's a number of issues you know I can respect him for climate change being one of them I think when it comes to the issue of community cohesion which we desperately need particularly given some of the ripples of what's happening in the Middle East I think he's got an important role to play in bringing communities together and I see he's already done some of that which I commend so look the First Minister is a duty and whatever comes with that duty I do to the best of my ability My last question you mentioned without prompting that you're a Celtic fan I think you like football too don't you?

56:05I love football I love that clip of you in the stands at Burnley from many years ago practically headering the ball what was the game again? Liverpool we beat Liverpool in the car that's what it was I didn't realise I was being filmed that's what they all say I genuinely did not. But you mentioned your support for Celtic. I do know some Scottish politicians who support Rangers. Yep. And or some other... The Gannisawa supports Rangers. But don't like being that public about it because it can be so divisive. So first of all, tell us a bit about your love for Celtic, but also presumably relating it to Gaza.

56:42You don't have a problem with Celtic fans waving Palestinian fags when some of the Iraq in the club do. so look this thing about all Scottish politicians have to be like Partick Thistle fans so that you don't confess your love for Rangers or Celtic you're right it's a thing but I think it's a bit daft I mean look everybody knows I've been a Celtic fan since I was about six years old so somehow pretend that I'm not longer a Celtic fan would be a bit ridiculous I think people prefer their politicians to be just human beings look I've at times had to criticise Celtic when I was Justice Secretary for example there was times where I had to be critical of the club for example during COVID and so on so there was you know you've got to just kind of remove whatever affiliation you've got with your club when you're doing the job in terms of being Celtic fan though I mean my late uncle sadly passed away quite young pancreatic cancer but he took me to my first ever Celtic game and just fell in love with the club and I grew up watching the club getting thrashed by Rangers they almost got 10 in a row Celtic stopped them we got 9 in a row so grew up with them just thrashing us year after year after year and George Alberts with that killer left foot but and Andy Gorham continuing to break Celtic hearts for years and years and then came a kind of golden age for Celtic thereafter and the player that I had in my bedroom wall was Henrik Larsson and still to this day I would quite like to meet at some point so Henrik if you're listening to the podcast and happen to be in UK or Scotland I would love to meet.

58:14In terms of the kind of waving of flags to me first of all look it's barely the most important issue in the it's been important to the club yes it's been important to the club but my general impression has been look if people want to show solidarity about waving flags we should let them just wave flags but it's up to the club what it decides to do it's an internal matter for the club and the management and the board of the club it just to me people waving flags is just of such little importance good well listen I like Celtic because when on my birthday when I was 10 in Lisbon was one of my main sporting memories as a child.

58:51And the only time I've ever left to burn the game early was against Celtic in the Anglo-Scottish Cup during what we might define as your hooligan period. Nah, no such period. I can tell you, it was hairy. What was the score? We won overall, but I honestly did leave you. No, we won. We won in the end, but oh my God, it wasn't safe. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. Look it up. Burnley Celtic, Anglo-Scottish Cup. Is that right? I'm going to check that one out. Thank you. I really appreciate it and you're a terrific communicator and I hope genuinely that things turn around you've had a tough tough plate had at you but I think you've obviously got an amazing future ahead of you I hope you write about Keir Starmer I don't need to hope he's miles ahead of the opinion polls thanks so much I really enjoyed it best wishes to you and of course all your listeners thank you very much indeed

59:45Okay, Rory, comes Yusuf. I was really charmed. I think he's an exceptional communicator. I really thought at the beginning, very few politicians are quite so warm and open about his mental health, about his family. He's very good at avoiding defensive jargon. I mean, it gets more uncomfortable, obviously, when we get to conversations about the European Union and productivity, and I think that must have been tougher for him. But I think he's got a real charisma and skill. Yeah, it's interesting because I got the... I could be wrong about this, but I got the feeling he wasn't enjoying it. I got the feeling he felt we were being quite rough on him.

1:00:16I didn't think we were that rough. So I thought there was a defensiveness there. That came in when we started getting into policy and European Union. Yeah, but I agree with you about the sort of openness and frankness and obviously his sort of mental health campaigner. I'm very pleased that he's out there talking about this stuff. I still feel on the kind of political stuff, I'm still not entirely clear what the SNP strategy is for the election. Do you think if he'd been Alex Salman or someone, he might have been able to handle with a bit more lightness of touch and humour some of the tough questioning and turned it around a bit more.

1:00:48No, I agree with you. I think he's got a very good manner on it. But I don't think they've yet provided the answers. Now, as it happens, I think if it's the document, I think it is. I have read the thing that they wrote about the currency. But I still feel that on these really big policy questions related to independence that they haven't really drilled the work. You don't think it's so much a manner thing? You don't think it's the content? Well, look, Alex Salmon definitely had the manner. Nicholas Sturgeon had the manner. As you're saying, he's got the manner. Slightly different, slightly more understated.

1:01:19But no, I think actually it's about the really hard questions related to it. What I also sense, and I don't think Alex Salmon, if you're listening, will enjoy that interview. I also sense that he was trying to downplay the importance of independence within the context of his leadership, except when he kept saying, I'd much rather be talking about policy on economy, jobs, education, etc. But no, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I'm surprised you've been so positive because I kept looking at you. I thought you were being quite grumpy. Well, obviously, I'm grumpy about the idea that independence is going to deliver these wonderful productivity benefits and blah, blah, blah.

1:01:54And I think I had these terrible goosebumps, as you know, when so much of what he says, I'm afraid, gives me post-traumatic stress. because it reminds me of the kind of promises that Brexit politicians made about how things are going to be easy. But I did think that for a politician, he was an exceptional communicator. I mean, one of the things that's sad about politicians is they can often become very defensive, very overly cautious, very wooden. And I really warm to his frankness about mental health, about his family, about his life growing up. I think he's got a great future ahead of him. I mean, he's very young.

1:02:28I think if he's resilient and holds to it, he could emerge as a kind of really major statesman over the next 20 years in Britain. It's interesting as well, because, you know, you've talked about Anasawa as well. I mean, Scotland does tend to produce pretty high quality political communicators. Yeah. And Anasawa, also terrific. Well, Ruth Davidson also was a great communicator, great charisma. So, and I think maybe because it isn't Westminster, because they aren't right up against the full media of the 70 million person country, people can maybe develop a more intimate, informal manner. Yeah, although up there, I mean, the media there is pretty full on the whole time.

1:03:07Good. Onwards and upwards. Thank you very much and goodbye.