The Scotsman Bulletin Tuesday October 03 2023 #Rutherglen #By-election

The Scotsman

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00:00 Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Bulletin for Tuesday. I'm Alan Young, I'm

00:12 Deputy Editor of the Scotsman, joined today by our political correspondent Rachel Emery

00:16 to take a look through some of the main headlines. Hi Rachel.

00:19 Good morning.

00:20 Let's have a look at the front page first as ever.

00:24 We lead today on politics again and this is Douglas Ross who has claimed that the frustrated

00:30 SNP rebels, he says there are a growing number, are now talking to the Scottish Tories about

00:36 ways of frustrating the Scottish Government. We will talk to Rachel about that in just

00:43 a minute. Also today we really start building up to the Rugby World Cup, Scotland's showdown

00:52 with Ireland at the weekend. So Rachel, Douglas Ross, I guess this has a feeling of a bit

01:02 of mischief making about it and the caveat is this is coming from him. We don't have

01:12 the other side, we don't have an SNP rebel saying yes I'm prepared to work with the Tories.

01:17 It also however wouldn't be that surprising.

01:19 Yes, this is from the Conservative Party conference which is now in full swing down in Manchester.

01:25 Our Westminster correspondent Alexander Brown is actually at that conference so he's there

01:29 to bring all the latest news and analysis as it comes on our website. But as you said

01:33 Douglas Ross speaking yesterday saying that SNP backbenchers in Holyrood are coming to

01:39 him and saying we want to work with you against the government, which is quite a striking

01:45 statement. You wouldn't think that was going on. And we've certainly, when he was asked

01:49 sort of like have you got any names, how many numbers are we talking about, you wouldn't

01:53 say, you wouldn't give any names, you wouldn't give any numbers to how it is. We don't actually

01:57 know who these people that he's claiming are coming to him are. One person that we were

02:02 speculating on was Kate Forbes. I think Douglas Ross was actually asked directly about her

02:07 and he wouldn't comment on that. She has now posted on Twitter or X about it, if I just

02:12 tweeted this out to you because it's quite interesting. She said Douglas's three jobs

02:15 Ross hardly spends any time in Scottish Parliament or speaking to his own party colleagues, which

02:20 is only one of the many, many reasons why I've never said more than passing too low

02:24 to him since he was elected. Conference hyperbole compensating for a failed Tory government.

02:29 So very scathing response there from Kate Forbes on Twitter on the back of all of this.

02:35 But it's quite interesting to see how this is going because there has been a lot of speculation

02:40 as to what these sort of backbenchers are doing, particularly, for example, Fergus Ewing.

02:44 Obviously last week he was suspended from the SNP because of because he's been going

02:48 against the government on a few things. So interesting to see how that is playing out.

02:52 But as you said, it's Conservative Party conference, general election coming up, a by-election

02:57 coming up this week as well. We would expect Douglas Ross to be trying to sow some sort

03:02 of seeds of discontent in the opposition parties where possible. So it's not surprising to

03:06 see something like this coming out of the conference.

03:10 Indeed. You mentioned the by-election today. I know you're heading back out to to Rutherglen

03:15 in a bit because campaigning in the last couple of days is really, really ramping up.

03:20 Yes. So the by-election is now only two days away, which it seems like a long time coming.

03:25 It seems to be the longest by-election that we've ever had because of the summer and how

03:29 long it's been going on over the summer. But it's only two days away now. And both Anna

03:33 Sarwar from Scottish Labour and Humza Yousaf from the SNP are in the constituency today.

03:39 I believe Anna Sarwar is in Campus Lang and Humza Yousaf is in Blantyre. I'm going along

03:44 to the SNP side of things today to see what he has to say about the election campaign.

03:49 There will be more on the website later about what he is saying on this. But yeah, very

03:53 much ramping up now. Everyone trying to get their last sort of hurrah as they possibly

03:58 can before the election opens in two days' time.

04:01 Is it a case of damage limitation for Humza Yousaf now? Do you think there's an acceptance

04:07 that this is Labour's to lose?

04:09 It very much is Labour's to lose. If you look at sort of the betting odds, for example,

04:15 I always like to have a look at them in a lead up to an election and a vote like this.

04:18 They are very much saying that Labour are going to win this, but only marginally. And

04:23 I think that's the sort of caveat there. It is only marginally. Now, I believe I saw just

04:29 before it came online here that there's been some cuts by a Labour led council, not in

04:35 the constituency, but it's been very close by. It'll be interesting to see if that has

04:39 any impact on this at all. It is, of course, local government and national government.

04:43 There could be no correlation whatsoever. It'll be interesting to see if council cuts

04:47 from a Labour administration in that area has an impact here. But it definitely is Labour's

04:52 to lose this, yes.

04:53 And as we've said before, it will be if Labour do win, it will be the size of the win, which

05:00 will be really telling, especially as we look ahead to a general election. Who knows when

05:07 that's coming? Perhaps next autumn?

05:09 Yes, Andrew Bowie, he was a Conservative MP and a minister in the government as well.

05:15 He was being interviewed this morning on the radio from the conference in Manchester. And

05:20 they said this will be your last conference before the next general election. He took

05:24 a bit of umbrage to that. He wasn't very pleased to be hearing that people are assuming this

05:29 will be a general election coming next year. But we are pretty sure it's coming pretty

05:32 soon and before the next Tory conference.

05:35 Great. Thanks for that, Rach. I'll let you go. Please keep an eye on scotsman.com throughout

05:41 the day. We will have all the very latest updates. If you can subscribe, then you will

05:46 not miss a thing. And if you're out and about today, as ever, please do pick up a copy of

05:52 the paper from me and from Rachel. It's bye for now.

05:57 [Music]

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