Political Editor Alistair Grant and Political Correspondent Rachel Amery at The Scottish Conservative Conference in Aberdeen

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]

00:03 Hello.

00:05 I'm Alistair Grant, the political editor of The Scotsman.

00:07 And I'm joined by Rachel Aimery, The Scotsman's

00:09 political correspondent.

00:10 And we're here in Aberdeen for the Scottish Conservative Party

00:14 Conference.

00:14 I interviewed Scottish Conservative leader Douglas

00:16 Ross for today's paper.

00:18 You can also watch the video online and listen to it

00:21 in podcast form on the Steamie, The Scotsman's politics

00:24 podcast.

00:25 I asked him about the upcoming general election,

00:27 about his party's polling rates, his own popularity ratings,

00:32 which aren't perhaps as good as he would like them to be.

00:35 And he also spoke about the threats and intimidation

00:38 facing politicians today.

00:40 And was quite candid, actually, about the impact

00:42 that's had on him and his family.

00:44 So you can check that out on The Scotsman's website right now.

00:47 But Rachel, we're obviously at the Scottish Conservative Party

00:50 Conference.

00:51 What do you think of the Scottish Tories standing

00:53 in Scottish politics at the moment?

00:55 Is there a lot for Douglas Ross to worry about?

00:57 Potentially.

00:58 We've got a new poll out this morning, actually,

01:00 which sort of suggests that not only are the Conservatives going

01:03 to fall into the third most popular party in Scotland,

01:06 that it's also going to be quite a big drop as well,

01:08 potentially, for them.

01:09 Traditionally, the Conservatives have enjoyed popularity

01:12 in areas like the North East, where we are right now

01:14 in Aberdeen.

01:14 But this new poll is suggesting that actually Labour

01:17 and the SNP are streets ahead, even

01:19 in this part of the country.

01:20 So there's a lot for the party to think about and see

01:23 if the seven MPs going into this election,

01:25 will they come back with seven seats as well or more?

01:27 It's going to be a big challenge for this election, isn't it?

01:30 Yeah.

01:30 And of course, we're in the North East, which is traditionally

01:32 an area that the Tories would want

01:33 to perform quite strongly in.

01:35 Expecting quite a strong line of oil and gas

01:37 out of this conference.

01:38 It's something that's been in the media quite a lot recently.

01:41 We've had Humza Yousaf, the First Minister,

01:43 very much trying to be a bit more positive

01:45 about the future of the North Sea in terms

01:47 of his relationship with oil and gas companies,

01:49 also emphasising the need for that just transition

01:52 to green energy.

01:53 But this is something the Tories are very--

01:55 they have quite strong messaging on.

01:57 They say that Labour and the SNP are essentially

02:00 betraying the North Sea sector.

02:02 But what do you think will come out

02:03 of this conference in terms of North Sea and oil and gas?

02:06 Well, if you look at the conference agenda,

02:08 there's already a lot of fringe events, exhibition spaces

02:11 as well, all about the oil and gas and renewable industry.

02:14 Additionally, that has been a very big talking point

02:16 for the Conservatives here.

02:17 So I'd imagine that will continue

02:18 to be so for this conference here.

02:20 Why pick Aberdeen as your venue without making

02:22 use of what their big party policy is here

02:25 in the North East?

02:26 So absolutely.

02:27 I think it will feature very heavily.

02:28 So we'll have to see what comes, of course, across the day.

02:31 We're having speeches from Douglas Ross, the party leader.

02:33 And Deputy Leader Megan Gallacher,

02:34 she's speaking as well.

02:35 I think she's actually introducing

02:37 all the candidates for this election too,

02:38 as later on today.

02:40 And I believe Prime Minister Reshu Sunak is also

02:42 going to be coming in as well to make a speech too.

02:44 I imagine oil and gas will also feature in all of their speeches

02:46 I've actually.

02:47 Yeah, and I think Reshu Sunak's trail, actually,

02:49 that was in a lot of the newspapers this morning,

02:50 was focusing on oil and gas.

02:52 I believe he is now in Aberdeen.

02:53 I think there was photos of his plane touching down

02:55 at Aberdeen Airport this morning.

02:57 But speaking to Douglas Ross, he was very clear

02:59 that the Tories want to make gains

03:01 going into this general election.

03:02 Of course, he would say that.

03:04 He's the party leader, and he's not going to say anything else.

03:06 How likely do you think that is?

03:08 You've obviously got seven MPs at the moment

03:10 following the defection of Lisa Cameron from the SNP.

03:13 Do you think they're likely to make gains across Scotland?

03:16 I think one of the big things they're going to need to do

03:18 is the UK Conservative Party as a whole,

03:20 their popularity rating has gone way down because of Boris Johnson

03:24 and Liz Truss, for example.

03:26 Can the Scottish Conservatives keep enough back from them?

03:29 Can they distance themselves enough

03:31 to still be seen as a separate entity from them?

03:33 That's a big question there.

03:35 I think another thing is we're very much

03:36 seeing this general election as a two-horse race

03:38 between the SNP and Labour.

03:39 But the seats for the Conservatives do have,

03:41 right now, it's perhaps not going to be that race.

03:44 They're still big players in those few seats they do have.

03:48 So perhaps the narrative that we're

03:49 looking at the rest of the country

03:50 won't play out in the seats the Conservatives might win.

03:53 So there is obviously still a chance

03:54 that they could still get as many seats as they do,

03:57 even though the course of the election is on the other parties.

03:59 Yeah, and I think there's obviously

04:00 a risk of them being almost kind of squeezed out

04:02 the narrative of the election.

04:03 Because as you say, there's very much

04:05 that kind of story of the rise of Labour across the UK.

04:08 And in Scotland, it's very much a story

04:09 about Labour and the SNP facing off against each other,

04:13 particularly in the central belt.

04:14 For the Tories, I think it'll be quite difficult to cut through

04:16 and to particularly--

04:18 I mean, just finally, I suppose one of the issues that will be--

04:20 that they will want to highlight,

04:22 but has maybe changed in recent years,

04:23 is the Constitution and the independence issue.

04:26 In past elections, the Tories have always

04:27 been quite keen to fight it as a kind of--

04:31 almost like a mini referendum on the constitutional issue

04:34 of the SNP on one side and the Tories

04:36 saying that they are the strongest unionist party.

04:39 As independence has been kind of taken off the table

04:41 a little bit, at least for the immediate future,

04:43 that's sort of changed.

04:44 Yes, I think the Conservatives, when

04:45 they're campaigning for this general election,

04:47 they need to be a bit careful about that.

04:49 In the past few elections, they very much

04:50 relied on the unionist vote, trying to get people across

04:53 by saying, we're the ones who don't want independence.

04:56 However, I think independence is still

04:58 a big issue for a lot of people.

04:59 We know when we're looking at polls

05:00 that support for independence is still around 50%.

05:04 But when we look at how important that is,

05:06 in terms of key issues for the election, it's now gone down.

05:09 Things like the cost of living crisis,

05:10 the state of the economy, employment, for example,

05:13 those things have now taken over independence.

05:15 Those are the things that voters are now more concerned

05:18 about than independence.

05:19 So the Conservatives do need to be careful to just not

05:21 rely too heavily on that message of unionism

05:24 when it comes to this election.

05:25 Yeah, well, I'm sure there'll be lots

05:26 to talk about over the course of the weekend.

05:28 We're here today and Saturday as well, as we said,

05:31 looking to hear from Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, but also

05:33 Douglas Ross, the Scottish Conservative leader.

05:36 I'm sure they'll have lots to talk about.

05:39 (upbeat music)

05:41 (upbeat music)

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