The Rest Is Politics: Leading - 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza

Episode Date: February 5, 2024

What is the future of the independence debate in Scotland? How was it to work with Nicola Sturgeon? Have world leaders done enough to curb civilian deaths in Gaza? On today's episode of Leading, Rory and Alastair are joined by Scotland's First Minister and leader of the SNP, Humza Yousaf, to answer all these questions and more. TRIP Plus: Become a member of The Rest Is Politics Plus to support the podcast, receive our exclusive newsletter, enjoy ad-free listening to both TRIP and Leading, benefit from discount book prices on titles mentioned on the pod, join our Discord chatroom, and receive early access to live show tickets and Question Time episodes. Just head to therestispolitics.com to sign up, or start a free trial today on Apple Podcasts: apple.co/therestispolitics. Instagram: @restispolitics Twitter: @RestIsPolitics Email: [e-mail] Producers: Dom Johnson + Nicole Maslen Exec Producers: Tony Pastor + Jack Davenport Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Thanks for listening to The Restis Politics. Sign up to the Restis Politics Plus. To enjoy ad-free listening, receive a weekly newsletter, join our members chat room and gain early access to live show tickets. Just go to therestispolities.com. That's the restispolities.com. Welcome to the Restis Politics leading with me, Alice Campbell. And with me, Rory Stewart. And we're delighted today to be joined by Hamza Yusuf, First Minister of Scotland. There are a fair few firsts to apply to Hamza. First Muslim politician to lead a Western democracy. Scotland's first non-white leader and its youngest, yet to hit 40, which makes Rory feel a bit old, let alone me. His first active campaign for the SMP, I think I'm right, was in 2007 when he was still a student.

And then into Parliament in 2011, Minister age 27 had several ministerial jobs, and now First Minister, as I say, yet to hit 40. And all the time that you've been an MP, the SMP has been in power. You've served that government in various positions to say, now, First Minister, but I guess the question we'll want to explore is how long the SMP can keep this dominant hegemony in Scotland. We've had the feuds and scandal surrounding your two predecessors, Alex Hammond and Nicholas Sturgeon. I think possibly delivery on public services coming more into the fray and you know sense that the dial on independence may be a little bit stuck so the SMP brand is maybe not what it was

you had a pretty difficult divisive leadership contest which you won so you've got a lot on your plate though was a nice easy introduction into the podcast which I like and just to add to all on the personal front you had this rather worrying, terrifying situation at the start of the Israel-Gaza conflict when your in-laws were caught up in all that. So a lot to be going on with, a lot to talk about, but welcome. I was feeling relatively calm before I came, and now you've just reminded me of all the worries and stresses that I have to do with. Can I start with worries and stresses? When you,

you're one of the few politicians who's said that you've, you've had active mental health support and counselling, and you said that if and when you became first minister, to you carry on with that. So I just wondered whether you have and what it gives you. I haven't actually and that's to my detriment and I absolutely should check in

because it is important and I learnt the lesson far too late. I remember it well, I remember the day that I knew I needed help and I was transport minister, my marriage, first marriage had broken down really tough time I was having I remember it was the middle of difficult weather.

Transport minister's always a difficult job and yeah, I didn't really feel I had anybody to turn to and I remember actually just a whole day passing and I didn't literally did not move from the right hand side of my city for a whole 24 hours I didn't move didn't get up to drink water didn't go to the toilet didn't eat anything and I remember just almost being in a state of breakdown and crying and upset and and not really understanding what I was upset at but then at that point 24 hours later knowing I needed I needed help and actually the first person I saw

wasn't actually somebody to help with counselling a friend who was a psychiatrist and I called him and he said look I think instead of talking to me you need to go talk to somebody who can really talk through

the issues that you're dealing with and I never spoke to Nicol about it never spoke to any of my colleagues about it did you feel there was still a stigma that meant that you as a serving

politician seeking help was a problem 100% I actually thought if they know about it I'll not be in a job and I don't think that would be the case I think Nicola would have been perfectly understanding, as with my government colleagues, John Spiney, who have always been close to, I think these people would have been very understanding.

But it was just you didn't hear about ministers with mental health challenges. If they had mental health challenges, they left the job. And I didn't feel like I wanted to necessarily leave at that point. But, yeah, I didn't tell anybody actually. And family, nobody actually knew about it. And even I was really nervous. It was my friend who said, like, I know somebody, you know, they are very trustworthy, the confidence, you know, you shouldn't worry about that.

And just you need to take some time out. And it was the best thing I ever did. But, no, actually, you've given me a really good reminder. I should absolutely be checking in. Why do you think it'd be good to do it now? So I think you don't go into the job of First Minister without realizing every single day is going to be stressful as your intro. It rightly reminded me every day is full of its stresses and strains and difficulties.

Very different when you're a minister, cabinet secretary. Because there will be times when there's strains and stresses. And health secretary almost feels like it is every single day. But as First Minister, you've got the overview. Everything rests with you. And it's not just First Minister. It's leader of the party as well. And then there's the strains and stresses of everyday personal life,

which you've gone and you've talked about some of that already. So I think it is really a good thing to do before you hit crisis point. How do you remain a sort of normal private human? being. One of the things I felt, I guess I entered politics about the same time as you, is that the risk of politics is that you lose your private self. You become a kind of public figure. And you're almost a public figure even when you're at home. You're so used to being on the defensive, to spinning, to presenting, that you lose the kind of vulnerability and nuance of being a human. How do you guard against that?

Look, I think first of all, you have to accept that you do not have a private life. I'm sorry. I can't put it any simpler to that. I remember I actually has to talk to. Kear about this. Recently we crossed past at clock 28 and I was just having a brief chance. I'd look let's have a proper sit down and I've written to him and not quite had a response yet. I'm sure it's just lost in the mail but it's coming soon.

We'll come on to your strategy. Genuinely we're saying to him because he was talking about his kids and keeping his kids out and the advice that I would give Keir is draw your boundaries really early on, really early on. So I didn't do that. As I mentioned, failed marriage

over it, even my relationship with my parents and sisters and siblings just became more difficult during that period when I didn't draw boundaries, you know, remarried, got kids, and I'm really strict with my boundaries. And what does what does drawing boundaries mean? So I'll give you an example. On Monday 7 o'clock to 8 o'clock, my team, my private office, no. Unless there is an absolute emergency that nobody else can deal with, don't call me. Because on a Monday 7 to 8 o'clock, I'm going to give my kid a bath, I'm going to try to

put it to bed. And that's important for me. And yep, you know what? I'll work in the weekend. I'll usually be campaigning it in the Saturday. I'll do my box during a Sunday but I'll tell them I'll do my box at 5pm

on a Sunday till 8 or whatever I need to do I'm going to try to use Sunday to make sure I take my kid to soft play and don't get me wrong my security who are wonderful and brilliant when I first told them look I'm going to keep taking my kids to the park and to soft play

and to the trampoline park and they raised an eyebrow to but they've been fantastic and been brilliant so I make sure I'm supposed to answer your question that I get as much family time as I can and protect the family time as much as I can but you can never truly be

have a private life I mean and I guess if you're working the hours that you're working you will be much busier than many of the people that you grew up with and were your friends at school and university and they will be living very very different lives with very different rhythms how do you continue to create space

do they feel that you've grown away from them people who were close to you when you were 15 16 you know I'm so lucky that the friends so the friends I've got the kind of group of six that I've got are one I grew up with and we've known each other for some of us over 30 years. And I don't see them nearly as often as I'd like. But I saw them over the Christmas holidays, for example,

made a point of going to one of the houses for dinner and so on. And randomly playing ping pong till two in the morning, which was strange. Do they all share your politics? Oh, no, no, no. Some of them do. Some of them didn't vote for independence. We didn't vote for independence despite me trying to persuade them for 20 or years. No, no, we come from. I think most of them probably now do right enough.

But one or two of them still need some. still need converted. But they're just, you know, still to be worked on. But why I like hanging around with them is because when I hang around with them, I'm not, I'm not First Minister, I'm just Humza. And, you know, they'll rip me to shreds. And just tell us a little bit about your family background, about you're born in Glasgow, but Pakistani parents. Yeah. Just tell us a little bit about their lives and how they came to Scotland. I mean, fairly typical kind of immigrant story. My mum was born in Kenya, so one of the Asians who moved to East Africa and came here when she was seven, eight years old. The father was a bit

older. He came from Pakistan. And interestingly, they went to the same school in the south side of Glasgow, Belhustin High School, and didn't know each other then, but ended up getting married later in life. And Dad had a tough upbringing, actually. Dad had a really tough upbringing. His mother died when he was 15, 16 from cancer. And unfortunately, you know, his father was not great with him after the death. And basically, they had to move out of the house with their siblings, many of them younger than him. He was 18 and the rest of them much younger than that and he had to basically bring up his little brothers and sisters. So it was a bit of a tough upbringing for him. Do you ever, I mean, you're part actually of a generation of very, very impressive British Muslim

politicians, Pakistani backgrounds. So Sajad Javid, the Mayor of London, your great Labour opponent in Scotland. Are you friends? Do you ever talk about that experience? Is that identity interesting to you or is it something that isn't very, I mean, it's hugely interesting. I mean, I take great pride in it. I also really challenged, you know, I think people who tell me that multiculturalism has failed, particularly I see people of colour and the Conservatives

who often say to me multiculturalism is failed. Wait a minute, you've got a Hindu British Prime Minister, as you've said, mayor of London from the subcontinent background, myself and First Minister's position and as you mentioned, Anas and if I think about before, Anas, of course, his father was a great inspiration to me

actually, Mohammed Sawa. I remember you know, an event where Mohamed Sawa had just got elected 1997, and we had this Pakistan Welfare Trust in her. Happens every year, 600 people in the Inshan Inn Hurtain Hotel, Erskine Hotel in Inshan. And I remember Mohammed Sauer walked in,

you know, this is a couple of months after he got elected. Election would have been in May, dinner would have been the end of June, July. And people were standing on the tables, cheering as though a rock star coming. And even my dad, who was SMP, to the absolute core. I'd been SMP in 1970, 74. I think he joined the SNP, you know,

clapping away and cheering. And I think it's great. And I think there is a common bond. And Sadat Khan, I've known for a long, long time. And I think my officials found it really strange. First time I met Sadat Khan as First Minister, a group of officials with me. And, you know, we come into these meetings usually,

and there's a handshake and we sit down. Sarat came big bear hug. And actually, I just ask officials to give us five minutes so we could just catch up about family and so on before we got into the hard politics. I think there's a common bond there. I find it really upsetting those who suggest that somehow multiculturalism has failed when actually the evidence is far from it.

You all come from very different backgrounds, but all of you, I guess, come from quite difficult backgrounds. I mean, in the sense that you're all the group of four that you've mentioned, I guess second generation, grew up in quite tough conditions economically initially. It's a story partly of ethnicity and religion. It's also a story of class. It's a story of... To the extent. You and Anna's a book.

went to the same Yeah, went to private school. I mean, I had middle class upbringing and background. I think it's less posher in a way

than Sajad or Sadiq Khan. Yeah, but I don't know too much about all their backgrounds but yes, I mean, middle class background and to pretend otherwise

would be foolish. But the thing that bonds us and the thing we can never ever get away from even as first minister or mayor of London or Sajid or us in their positions

is we, I'm afraid, will always in this country be seen by some people through our skin colour first, or religion first. And that's been my experience. I can remember the first time I ever felt racism, or endured racism, primary three, seven, eight years old.

I remember my mum, who's been a massive influence in me, you know, in tears coming home because she had to explain to us that they were about to take an estate agent to court because the estate agent denied them the viewing of a house because of their business. And dad. Yeah, mum and dad were wanting to move to leafy suburbs, Newton Merns, south side of Glasgow.

And it's a famous case. It's there in the public domain. They tried to view a house and they kept getting told by the stage and the homeowners on holiday. Got an operation. They can't see you. And my dad, my mum just had it in a gut. And people of colour have this. We've endured racism for so long that we just know in our gut something ain't quite right.

And my dad then got his white receptionist, Scottish receptionist to phone up. She got an appointment like that the next day. Mom said, nah, that ain't right. And she decided to take them to court and won. And was that true also that you had a challenge around one of your children getting into a school and that? Nursery. Yeah, exactly that as well. And again, it was a gut.

This isn't right. And didn't feel right. So regardless of what position I ever get to in life or any other person of color gets in life, I'm afraid that the common bond will always have, whether you're Labor, SMP, conservative. The common bond is we kind of all get. it because we've all endured it. We've all suffered it. Because the nursery case, you dropped in the end,

didn't you? Yeah, I think it's just not wanting to have to go through the rigmarole of a long, drawn-out court case. You know, our vindication came when the care inspectorate looked at the case and said that they upheld our complaint. So they didn't want you there because of the colour of your

skin? I believe it was because of probably the religion of my daughter as opposed to the colour of the skin. Okay. Just on the religion, how deep is your Muslim faith? That's part of who I am, absolutely. I don't always pray five times a day, but I'll fast during Ramadan.

Prayer to me is important. My faith helps to keep me grounded. I was at Burns night last night, and my glass was only full of iron brew as opposed to anything stronger. So, no, it's a hugely important part, not just the rituals, actually. For me, I get a lot of solace

out of the spiritual contemplation of my faith. One of the things that I've I've noticed recently, particularly since October the 7th, there's an increase in people making stereotypical comments about Muslims. I mean, I just did an interview with an American podcast guy called Sam Harris, who was hammering me for nearly an hour saying, yes, but surely, Rory, you have to admit there's a connection between Muslims and suicide bombers and Muslims and terrorists.

You just wouldn't let it go. And I wondered, is that something that you've experienced and is it something that's getting better, getting worse? How does our society deal with it? I think it's getting worse. Maybe it comes in cycles. But look, I remember for me, 9-11 was such a seminal moment for me, and that might sound a bit kind of selfish,

given thousands of miles away and affected and killed so many thousands of Americans. But for me, it was a day I'll always remember when 9-11 took place on a Tuesday, I think. And coming back from school and school bus home, you know, radio was on, you can kind of hear what was going on. And the driver was telling us to shut because he was trying to listen to what was going on. Went home and saw all the scenes, as you guys would have seen, the terrible tragic terror attack that took place.

And then the next day I remember going to school and sitting in form class. And the same two guys I used to sit beside every single morning. And we'd talk about the things that teenage boys talk about, mainly in my case Celtic. You know, the football club I loved. And they were bombarding me, not with any maliciousness. Which are bombarding me with questions I had no idea

the answer to. You know, why do Muslims hate America? Do you know who was behind it? What was it all about? I'm sitting there going, I don't have a clue. Right? And then, of course, all the Islamophobia that followed post-in I live in. But I have to say, my position as First Minister and even perhaps before then, there is definitely still a deep

rooted systemic and endemic Islamophobia in this country and Scotland is absolutely not mean to that at all. So, you know, some of the questioning I'll get on certain issues. It will be seen through LN's because I'm a Muslim. And sometimes I'll do my best to try

to counter that. I think even sometimes overcompensate with that. I'll be more wary about oh goodness, how will my meeting with the Muslim community be perceived and I'll do things to go out of my way to make sure people, you know, I'm the only minister I think in the Scottish government that's ever ever attended

and I mean in the history of the evolution I think I'd be happy to be challenged in this that's ever attended you know a meeting for action, churches and need you know the organisation that stands up for Christian communities around the world because I wanted to make sure a message was sent that I stand with Christian communities that are persecuted right across the world including in Muslim

majority countries so sometimes you can be almost in danger of overcompetence I think that's... You went to a synagogue pretty quickly after October 7th. Yeah, well, I think that was important for me to do, particularly given the personal circumstances I was enduring, but I wanted our Jewish community who I've grown up with. I mentioned I grew up in Newton Merens. It has the largest Jewish community in Scotland.

It still does to this day. You mentioned Hutchie Grammar School. It's got the largest Jewish population of any school in Scotland. So I grew up and amongst that community and have an enormous love and affection for that community and I didn't want them to feel because of my personal circumstances that I wasn't feeling their grief because they are grieving and for their loved ones, for their loss, for their country. And I think it was an important signal for me to be there. I've spent a bit of time with both of your predecessors. And first of all, I'd like to get your sense of them as people and

politicians very briefly, maybe salmon in a sentence, Nicholas Sturgeon in a sentence. But also, But I asked both of them at different times whether they were comfortable projecting themselves as internationalists when they have the word national in the title of the party and nationalism at its heart. And I've never quite understood why you don't change the name of the party. It's just such a strong brand, I think, is the honest answer. But also, having done lots of international engagement, Minister for a number of years, and obviously First Minister and other Minister of Portfolios, nobody's really ever sat me down and being confused about the fact that we're a centre-left progressive party. to. I mean, everybody's understood it. Nobody's ever said, oh, by the way, what kind of nationalist are you? And I've never had anybody from a kind of far right nationalist party attempt to reach out to us because our policies are pretty self-evident. We're pro-migration. Our social

policies are progressive and to the left, you know, and now led by a Muslim. I mean, there's not really much debaity about the progressive nature of our party. But I mean, nationalism has uncomfortable connotations. There's no getting away from it. But it's never been an issue practically in reality. You've been in power for 17 years. There is, I think, a sense of maybe not as,

there's a real desire to get rid of the Tories across the country as a whole, I think. But I think you are in a kind of slightly different place to where you've been in the last decade. I'm just wondering whether you don't,

you couldn't do with the sort of big major refresh. Yeah. No, I just think the SMP brand is so strong and it's known, it's so recognised. I think to make that kind of change.

The party is going to be, what, 90 years old? Sure. I actually share a birthday with the party on 7th of April. So it's going to be 90 years old. I think the brand is so strong. And as I say, I don't think there's much confusion about our socially progressive values. Do you ever worry?

Because I mean, I felt this a lot during the Brexit referendum, that there's a tendency to imagine that all your problems can be solved if you just get rid of the other. So obviously the Brexit campaign is thought, if we just get rid of Europe, everything's going to be fine, all the problems we have with the NHS and education, I think. And I sometimes feel the same coming out of Scotland. We just get rid of England and Wales. It'll all be fine. All our problems come from Westminster.

We can just take control of our own things. We'll sort it out. And I tend to feel in personal life, that's a bit like if your life's going badly and you think, well, if I just get rid of my wife or if I just don't see my parents, everything will be fine. And it's sometimes a failure to understand that most of the problems in our lives, whether in Britain or Scotland or personally, are internal. And that the best way of fixing them is from within, not to get rid of someone else.

So I think, look, it's an interesting analysis analogy. That would be true if the premise of the independence campaign was that with independence will have rivers of milk and honey and manna will fall from the sky. That's not the premise of the independence campaign. The independence campaign recognises and the independence movement recognises that, by the way, you're still going to have problems and challenges. Some of those will be really difficult problems and challenges. Global financial crash, Scotland wouldn't be immune to that.

We would still have to face those challenges. the difference with independence is you would have the economic monetary fiscal levers on your hands to be able to adjust to those shocks. And also that you wouldn't have, and Brexit's a great example, you wouldn't have imposed upon you policies that create such a deep-truded economic self-harm as Brexit did. You wouldn't have them imposed upon you, particularly when your population didn't vote for it. So it's not a look, by the way, rose-tinted glasses, everything is fine with independence. It's saying, well, look at the UK, for me, again, Brexit's a perfect example. I think there's a conspiracy of silence around Brexit from Westminster politicians.

Nobody is talking about it and we will be and are talking about it. All of the evidence, bar none, shows you what an absolute disaster it has been for the economy. We are the poor man of northwest Europe, you know, the poor man of northwest Europe. And you look at countries, whether it's Norway, whether it's Ireland, whether it's Denmark, Austria, and you look at their levels of productivity higher than ours. You look at their national income per head, higher than ours. You look at their levels of inequality, lower than ours. So don't you take my word for it at all? Resolution Foundation, well-respected think tank. Typical household in the UK, £8,300 better off if we had the same levels,

or similar levels of productivity and similar levels of inequality. So, look, the premise of the independence campaign is not vote for independence, and by the way, you know, everything will be fine, everything will be okay, is let's actually make the decisions for ourselves. I am going to come back to Alex and Nicola and your assessment of that. But just sticking on Brexit for a while. So I sort of feel that it kind of helped your campaign in terms of the sort of emotional level of it. But I think it's thrown up real practical problems, which I don't feel you've in the last decade begun to address.

So if you go back to all the big questions that I felt weren't answered in the independence campaign in 2014 about currency, about military, about border, about trade, and so forth, you've had a decade. But I don't feel really any closer to understanding those. And I think that's why your independence campaign feels a little bit stuck. I would disagree because we've spent a fair period of time, particularly since I've been First Minister, publishing a whole series of papers. Now, I'm not expecting the mass populace to read 50 pages of what would happen if we end up a member of European Union, what would happen with our borders, custom checks, currency, pensions.

But what people do know in relation to Brexit is that those issues, border and currency and trade have become much, much more difficult, much more complicated. Yes, but how you deal with them, And we've got papers on, or many of these issues, some of them are still to come, for example, for their papers on pensions and so on, is that we're up front and honest about it. So our paper on the EU doesn't pretend that there's not going to have to be some kind of light touch customs checks for some goods coming across the border between England and Scotland. The prize, of course, we say, is that Scotland would then be part of a single market that's seven times the size of the UK. And, by the way, we'd have a department within the Scottish government that effectively would do the initial paperwork for you, deal with the light touch customs. The awful thing is when we hear the phrase light touch customs checks and all the alarm bells ring

because that's especially today where there's more than Brexit is what we said. There'll be some light touch customs checks coming across the list. Let's be upfront about it and honest about it. Let's not pretend that and I think people rather appreciate the honesty and that's why the paper goes into the detail and says the prize is a market seven times the size of the UK, tariff-free trade. Are you not pretending to saying that you can get straight back into it? We're not saying we can get straight back into it. were saying, again, if you read the paper, which I'm going to send you after this,

which says there's an application process in Scotland would have to apply to be a member of the European. You just talked about this seven times bigger market, as if that was a kind of, this is what I mean is that it's like, there's a touch of the Farage about this and saying, this is what's going to happen. You're basically saying you're giving us the end point in terms of your communication without actually, fair enough, you're admitting there are problems, but it seems to me that people have a better sense. Can I reinforce that the other reason it feels like, the Brexit campaign is that they also were saying, don't worry, we're going to leave Europe, and we're going to connect to the much bigger growing markets of India, China, the United States,

which are much faster growing. And what they failed to take into account is that more than half Britain's trade was with Europe. And again, in your vision, there's a lovely vision of this wonderful future, with a seven times bigger market, but it's failing to take into account that these light-touch customs checks are affecting by far your biggest trading partner. Look, again, by value of goods actually do more trade with the rest of... Goods and services, you're massively. Services are, of course. Well, it's a service economy, so goods are almost irrelevant.

That again is a Brexiter problem. We are a service-driven economy. Absolutely. Services, of course, are important. The point is that we're not going into the European Union, and again, I accept there's got to be an application process. We're not going into the European Union completely cold. We have been, of course, a member of the European Union for many, many days. decades. Now, I accept there's got to be an application process. Do I think that application

process, and would Europe look to speed that up? Would we be able to speed up? I would certainly hope so, given we've, you know, been able to align with the Acqui Community Air for many, many decades, across many chapters. Now, that's got to be a conversation that's got to take place with the European Union. But I'm not trying to sell the point that somehow everything will be okay. I'm being cheek, 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. I mean, Spain have said unequivocally, again, in fairness, a previous administration at a time, but the Conservative Prime Minister at a time said, look, we're not going to look to veto, we don't 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's 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. The 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 Norway's and your Denmark's. 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 within the UK as a whole, whereas I agree with you, I think most people now consider it to have been a disaster. So that what's happening within the debate in Scotland, I feel is that you've kind of had independence, which has carried your strategy, for a lot of the time that you've been in power. And now there's much greater focus 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. I 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 and happy to... And you're not just going to blame Westminster, which is the normal way that you explain why things go wrong. 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 a cost of living crisis. I'm afraid you can try as much as you want, but that is not created by the Scottish government

in the cost of living crisis lands very much at the door of a conservative party that is imposed 13 and a half years of austerity and took a torpedo to the economy through the mini budget. So 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. It's pretty good. Our health service facing challenge, for sure, still continues to be not just the best performing in E department, but the only country that hasn't had junior doctor strikes or nurses' strikes. I could point to, you know, every single area. I could come back with stats galore.

I suppose my point in raising that was so you could challenge back and forth. I am much more comfortable in a policy space and talking in a policy space. 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 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. The one big policy area of difference that Labor 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 throwing at you before, I'm going to throw it again. Kate Forbes, you're a transport minister in the trainsman ever on time.

When you were Justice Secretary, the police were stretched at a 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 backwards and forwards on stats about how many people on waiting lists and, you know, 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 a kind of a bit of a bit of a fag end of this SMP hegemony. I've been called lots of things before. I think you've called me now Farage and the fag end. So tell me, and before you answer that, I want to pin you down on your assessment of salmon briefly and your assessment of Nicholas 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. 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. So look, but Kate and I, you know, she was talking we were messaging last night,

actually, you know, get along very well, water 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 SMP. My intention is to make sure in Scotland we're the largest party and we run that job. in our election, but we're facing a challenge. And I don't think it's because there's a huge enthusiasm to vote for Keir Starmar. I don't think the 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 is important to say, and I'll say this, look, actually, Keir Starrmer is going to be the next PM. Just no, I think anybody can tell me or pretend that won't be the case. Scotland, we've got an opportunity to vote for a party that you believe in, a party that values aligns 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 has heard. I've determined to get your Alex and Nicola. Okay, sure.

But before I do that, before I do that, just on this point about, so this sort of new strategy appeared recently, where he suddenly said, Keir Stahmer 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 facing a challenge, but let's just say Scotland stays the same in terms of politics, in the rest of the country, Kirsteim has to get the bigger swing than Clement Attlee in 1945 and Tony Bray in 1997. So it's not true that if people vote for the SMP in Scotland in the same numbers, that Kierstarm 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 ex-examination. existential threat, I hope is an existential threat, given the damage that they've caused this country.

They are 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 wouldn'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. Of course, every vote does count.

This is my point, is that Scotland's votes do count. Scotland could, you know, end up sending a whole raft of Labour MPs, who will do nothing other than stand up for Kier Stammer. Michael Shanks, rather than when MPs is a classic example. But they'll stand up with Scotland. No, no, he said, well, let's take the vote and get the guys a ceasefire as a perfect example. Michael Shanks said, I'll stand up for Scotland. His leader in Scotland, Anna, supported a ceasefire.

What did Michael Shanks do? Didn't vote for a ceasefire because what he did was what Kierstarmor told him to do. And that is what you'll get with Labour MPs or get SMP, 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. And that's what you get with SMPMPs. 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? So I just did an hour speech on this at Clanswell University on my vision front. industrial policy and a lot of it is centred on the huge potential we've got from the transition to net zero. And just reminds what is productivity in Scotland? How does it rank compared to productivity in England?

Where has 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. You know, it's nowhere near where we need it to be. And for me, the... And when you say it increased by a faster amount, it's still tiny... Yeah, still... It's still...

I'm accepting that, by the way. I'm not disagreeing with you. It's far too low than it, than it should be. and I go back to my point, or fiscal monetary levers largely controlled by the UK. But look, I accept also that... You think productivity is defined by the fiscal and monetary liens, you 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 how the United States and Europe are doing it. You need to be able to compete. Not with the quantum of the Inflation Reduction Act of the European Green Deal Investment Partnership, plan, sorry, what you're going to have to do put some sort of subsidy up, like actually the Labour Party seem 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? That'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. And 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 then 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. Whatever 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 on the way that Europe or the US has done, you'd be able to get productivity to. I don't doubt that I 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 that 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, you're JP Morgan's, Morgan Stanley's, Blackleaks. All big investors globally, and all of them have an interest in investing in Scotland due to the climate renewable potential. our 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 we'd be invest in the UK when we're getting

subsidy incentives in the United States or on European capitals. I'm curious why Rory's making the face. I make a 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 but 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 would expect 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 Trust lesson. We're not the world's reserve currency. We don't have the freedom to do those things. Product productivity, of course, undoubtedly, is linked to skills. We just had a skills review, in fact, 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. So if you look at some of the work that's been done by Sandy Begby, well-known Scottish financial enterprise, it talks about that ecosystem. Scotland's advantage of 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 SMP, I don't think, has said, before this budget, is we're going to have to look at the size of the public sector in Scotland. We'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, look, I can talk to you in this podcast and detail about what I think we can do. 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 to have those targeted measures to reduce poverty, because poverty is still far too endemic at 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. If 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 is faced in 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 to that question that you're desperate to ask honestly deep down in your heart you've grown up with Alex Salmon as this huge figure in this SMP you've then had Nicholas 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 what's that message is at COVID, or whether it's the police. So Alex, in a word or a phrase, and Nicola, just give me your assessment. Yeah, I don't know. It'll be hard to do it 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, you know, about the Iraq war. And he was, you know, I heard him speaking in the House of Commons. And I don't know, my dad was the ASMP, and it was always probably my natural kind of inclination was towards the SMP. That was a moment And I thought, yeah, I want to join that party.

And Alex gave me my first job as a minister. Not only that, 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 a time, a handful of MPs. And obviously, with the party and government for a few years at that point. And then I was as a young, I think 26-year-old,

when he said, you're going on question time. I said, me? They said, yeah, tell hum's all 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, is, yeah, it's a matter of not just regret, but I feel quite hurt about it all and how it's all transpired. Somebody I looked up to now spends a fair bit of his time. Trying to damage you. Laying the boot into the SNP. And yeah, trying to damage me, but it's personally or the SMP. And frankly, the cause that we both love. And I do believe Alex is. Why? Why has he? What have we learned 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 that there's anything other than to try to replace the SMP, which is never going to happen. But I don't know, because Alex, I feel, could have actually played a role as, you know, kind of elder statesman, actually given advice, gone off to do whatever he wanted to do. Does 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 kind of contact with him at all? No, I mean, we kind of briefly shook hands and exchange placentries during Winnie Ewing's funeral.

But look, I haven't got it my way only because, you know, 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 SMPA kicking. If you believe in independence, giving the largest vehicle that's driving forward independence of kicking every single day and through every single press release, doesn't make sense to me. It 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 against Mohammed Sauer, actually. My dad's office in Politichields

in Glasgow South Side, the basement was her election base. So I've known Nicola since I was a young kid. So look, I've 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 if I'm really sad about how, you know, there's certain elements who are seeking to try to kind of tarnish her reputation when I think about COVID in particular, I work 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, far 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 interest of the people

that she were serving first to try to protect them from her. 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? I think in hindsight you could

absolutely reflect on that and say, look, should that have been the case? I 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 see... I mean, it's a kind of, as a sort of outside of listening, it's a, you've found yourself in a very unlucky, difficult position. I mean, it's not nice to sit with the thing saying

I can't comment on an ongoing police investigation. This is not a, it's not the line you would have wanted to... Of course not. Of course not. I don't know if that's a question, a statement of the obvious, but yeah, no, of course not. I mean, I was First Minister for a couple of weeks, and I remember, you know, 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 and we know parliamentary you go out you set out what it is you stand for who sums of you so what is you going to try to advocate for and 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 get somebody hits you yeah I agree so it has been the difficult and it's challenging but also I've tried 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 a captain of the football team, right? I mean, it's your home country. It's a country you love.

It's a country you're raising your kids in. And you get to lead it. And every single day, for all the challenges, there's some really good moments. Alistair, First Minister. Let's take a quick break. Hi, everybody. It's Dominic Zavrick here from The Rest is History. Now, some of you may have heard me on your show.

The rest is politics when Rory was away. and I was filling in and enjoying Alistair Campbell's tremendous banter. And I'm back to tell you about our new series on The Restis History, which is all about Britain in the 1970s, a period with a lot of uncanny resemblances to our own. So right now we're living through a moment when oil shocks generated by war in the Middle East are rippling through the world economy,

when Britain feels like it's sunk in a bit of a malaise. People are arguing about Europe. The government has got a feeling. few issues with the trade unions. And we have a kind of, I suppose you'd say governing elite, a kind of political class that is really struggling to come to terms with all of these issues. And people are asking if Britain is governable at all. So there are a lot of parallels between that Britain that I'm describing, which is our Britain and the Britain of the mid-1970s. So in this series that's coming out on the rest is history, we're looking at these and other

issues. We'll be talking about the rise of Margaret Thatcher, obviously a colossal figure in our political life even now, whether you love her or loathe her. We'll be talking about the very first Brexit referendum of 1975, a subject that I'm sure Rory and Alistair will have strong opinions about. We'll be talking about the fall of the Labour Prime Minister Harold Wilson and we'll be talking about one of the grimest moments in Britain's economic history, the moment in 1976 when we had to go cap in hand, as people said at the time, to the International Monetary Fund, the IMF, for a then record bailout. Now, if that sounds good to you,

how could it not sound good to you? Of course it sounds good to you. We have a clip for you to listen to at the end of this episode. And if you want to hear more, just search for The Rest is History, wherever you get your podcasts. To 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 Galser. And I wonder whether we could take you back to that, how that felt, what you learnt 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 Naria'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 in the retaliation. would be huge. And she was in Gaza City or Han Yunus? No, she was in Derbila

which is in between Gaza City and in Chania'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 92-year-old mother. She had 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. And 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. So 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 was 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. No, transpired they hadn't, but somebody had been hit nearby. And my mother-in-law tells me that she then, after, you know, 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, 50, 60, 70 metres away 8-year-old girl from that blast landed outside their house

and their spine, they say that she can't move. She's conscious, but she can't move. We don't know what to do. We said, well, come, Mohammed, that's my wife's brother. He's a doctor. Is he... He's still there, yeah. He's still there. Muhammad's still there. Still working in the hospital

where he can. Separated 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 ten 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 go back to the UK and obviously pick them up from the airport and went to the house and spent time with him in the evening. And I remember my father-in-law was chatting to a relative as he come at the door and a firework went off and he jumped.

It 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, Anna Sawa was pretty clear on a ceasefire.

Just give a sense of how you feel about the way Joe Biden has handled this, the way we should Sunaq is handled this and the way Kastama's handle this. I think those who have still refused to call for an immediate ceasefire will be seen to be in the wrong side of history on this issue. I just can't understand it when you, particularly those that 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 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. I mean, as a politician, can you understand why Rishi Seneke and Kirstama are not calling for ceasefire. Truthfully, I can't. I can't. I've tried to think about it. No, I genuinely can understand. Trying to do the influence a bit behind the scenes and things. Look, I just, 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 would 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 conversations 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. We'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 for your time. I'm thinking about the last couple of times I've seen you. I saw you in 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, very 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 would be hard for him not to be there, Laurie. Yeah, no, I am. 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 be outrageous if I had not been at the coronation.

I take my job very seriously, whether it's attending 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 want to 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 the 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 hate you like football too, don't you? I love football. I love that. clip of you in the stands at Burnley for many years ago practically headering the ball what was the game again was the final?

Liverpool in the Cup that sort of was yeah yeah yeah yeah I didn't realize it was being filmed that's what they all said I genuinely did not but you mentioned

your support for Celtic I do know some Scottish politicians who support Rangers and or some another service 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, you don't have a problem with Celtic fans waving Palestinian fags when some of the hierarchy 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'll be 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 a nine in a row. So grew up with them

just thrashing us year after year after year and George Alberts with that killer left foot. And Andy Gorham continuing to break Celtic hearts for years and years. And then came a kind of golden age for Celtic thereafter. The player that I had on my bedroom wall was Henry Larson 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, we can see that. I would love to meet. In terms of the kind of waving of flags, to me, first of all,

look at it's barely the most important issue in the Israel. It's been important to the club. Yes, 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.

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 the win on my birthday, when I was 10 in Lisbon, was one of my main sporting memories as a child. And the only time I've ever left to burn the game early was against Celtic in the Anglo-Scottish Cup during what we've identified as your Huligood period. No such period exact. I tell you, it was hairy.

What was the score? We won overall, but I honestly did leave. No, we won. We won in the end, but oh my god, it wasn't safe. Is that right? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, look it up. Birdley Celtic, Anglo-Skottish Cup. Is that right, right? I'm going to check that one. Thank you. I really appreciate it. And you're a terrific communicator. And I hope, you know, genuinely that things turn around. You've had a, you've had a tough, tough plate had at you.

But I think you've obviously got an amazing future ahead of you. Oh, I hope you're right about Kirstama. Funny to hope he's mouth, they have the opinion, boss. So thanks so much. I really enjoyed it and the best wishes to you and, of course, all your listeners. Thank you very much indeed. Thank you. Okay, Rory, Holmesie Yusuf? I was really charmed. I think he's an exceptional comedian. I really thought at the beginning, I've 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 skull. 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. I 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 stuff. Yeah, but I agree with you about the, 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, on the kind of political stuff, I'm still not entirely clear what the SMP strategy is for the election. And do you think if he'd been Alex Salmon or someone, he might have been able to handle with a bit more sort of lightness of touch and humour some of the tough questioning and turned it around a bit more? No, I think he's got it. 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 done the work driven down. think it's so much a manner thing. You don't think it's that 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. But 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 your listens,

would 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 now, I'm glad you enjoyed it. I thought he was, I'm surprised you'd been so positive because I kept looking at you. I thought you were being quite grumpy through the thing. So I was, obviously, I'm grumpy about the idea that independence is going to deliver these wonderful productivity benefits and blah, blah, blah.

And I think he's, I had this terrible goosebumps, as you know, when so much what he says, I'm afraid, gives me post-traumatic stress because it reminds me of the kind of promises the 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 franks 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.

I 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, since you went, well, Ruth Davidson also was a great communicator, great charisma. 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 out there, I mean the media up there is pretty full on the whole time. Good. On was and upwards. Thank you very much and goodbye.