Scotsman Daily Bulletin Thursday 23 May

The Scotsman

2 years ago

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00:00 [Music]

00:08 Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Built in for Thursday. I'm Alan Young,

00:12 I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by our Westminster correspondent,

00:16 can you guess why? It's Alex Brown. Hi Alex. Hi. Let's have a look at the front page.

00:24 If we can, maybe we can't. There we go and it's no great surprise what we're leading on today.

00:34 Obviously every paper in the country has the same story and pretty much the same picture.

00:39 Rishi Sunak on the steps of Downing Street yesterday getting drenched as he announced a

00:46 snap election on July 4th. Let's get straight into it Alex. Big question, why on earth now?

00:56 Why has Rishi Sunak ruined the summer holidays for Scotland?

00:59 I mean that's a more specific question. I think it comes down to a few things. I think the

01:06 government had been hoping to have some fiscal wiggle room. I mean for a long time we thought,

01:10 well they already cut national insurance but maybe later on in the year they wanted to find

01:15 10 billion pounds worth of tax cuts to announce because they've overseen the highest tax burden

01:21 I think in a century. Unfortunately the treasury figures are so damning and so grim that a

01:28 realisation has been made that actually they can't deliver these tax cuts. They don't have a more

01:34 improved economic offer to bring to people. So doing it now makes it look like, well you know

01:39 what we've got this improved inflation figures, that's something we've achieved and then we'll

01:43 just campaign on our economic record, which is an incredibly bold thing to do given the last couple

01:49 of years. But yeah, so I think it's almost an acceptance that things are not going to get better

01:55 which incidentally is the music that we heard repeatedly while Rishi Sunak was giving a speech.

02:00 Indeed and Rishi Sunak we know has hit the campaign trail already today. We expect to see

02:11 him in all four corners of the UK, assuming that Keir Starmer, as the Prime Minister,

02:20 I'm waiting, will be doing the same. But it's fair to say there isn't universal support amongst

02:27 Rishi Sunak's backbenchers for an early poll. No, I mean it's remarkable. I have a long-running

02:35 theory that Brexit has fundamentally warped the brains of some of our parliamentarians.

02:40 While some people are quite excited about this, they think it's a fantastic, seizing the initiative,

02:44 others are actually going, well hold on, we're all about to lose our seats. Some of them are

02:49 so upset about this they've submitted letters to the 1902 committee, i.e. well if we change

02:54 Parliament, if we force him out and get a new leader, we don't have to have the election yet

02:57 and we can say hold on, we've got a better offer to give to you, which is obviously completely insane.

03:01 I think Esther McVey, best known as the common sense minister and a presenter on GB News,

03:06 is one of those who was unhappy. But there was a view that more time is not going to save them

03:15 and all they really have control over is the narrative and the initiative. So lots of MPs

03:21 are very unhappy, they think they're going to lose their seats and they're already thinking

03:25 about what's next. And it's also MPs who maybe aren't necessarily worried about themselves per

03:30 se, but I think Tracey Crouch, an MP who has had battles with cancer, a Tory MP who is standing

03:36 down because she may be, it feels like she's got a new lease of life, she wants to not miss those

03:41 years with her family, especially after some severe bouts of cancer. But she was saying that

03:45 actually she's got some really big legislation that she'd been really working on and thought

03:49 she'd have the rest of the year to get through and now because of this, that legislation simply

03:54 will not pass. She will leave and it will not make it through Parliament. So that's another

03:58 reason why MPs are quite angry about the announcement. That is a good point. Parliament

04:04 does have quite a lot to do and they now have, what, a week to wrap up business? Just take us

04:11 through quickly how it works. So essentially the government has to just get everything on the order

04:15 paper. I think the financial services bill is going to be drafted and go through today. And

04:22 then if you've got legislation that's a first reading, second reading, and then you have to

04:26 get a third and then you have to go back to the Lords, all of that sort of stuff simply won't

04:29 happen. I mean, I know MPs have been trying to work on stuff on housing. We know that the

04:33 government were kind of in a fight amongst itself over reforms to renting. That now simply won't

04:39 pass, it's not going to happen. And I suppose the biggest thing of all is the Rwanda scheme,

04:43 this huge albatross, this financial burden inflicted upon us all, which is such a huge

04:50 culture war in the party and created a real threat to Richie's student exprimership. I don't think

04:54 flights are ever going to take off now. The Prime Minister said this morning that no flights will

04:58 go before the election. And if we accept, which I think we probably can, that Labour are going to

05:02 win the election, they said they won't follow the Rwanda scheme. So in a sense, we've given

05:06 hundreds of millions of pounds for Rwanda, had all these incredibly expensive court battles,

05:11 and now no flights will go whatsoever. So it's, you know, legislation is just dying or simply

05:16 won't happen. And that is incredibly poor from a government that's supposed to be focused on

05:21 getting things done. So we're obviously looking ahead to huge Tory losses at the election. But

05:28 the other big story will be Scotland, clearly, where the Labour revival could well see the SNP

05:37 could lose dozens of seats even. Yes, I mean, I think it was really interesting speaking to people

05:43 yesterday. You would have thought, I mean, the Tories more broadly, worried, panicked, miserable.

05:49 Scottish Tories, I mean, it was very much cans o'clock. They're absolutely buzzing. I mean,

05:54 they're speaking to so many of them, both in Westminster and in Holyrood. The general view

05:58 is well, hold on. John Swinney is gonna have no time to get his feet under the table. There's no

06:03 time for him to kind of develop some sort of balance for the party. And the SNP are going to

06:08 absolutely routed. I mean, they're already losing a lot of big names who are standing down. But

06:12 there's a number of marginal seats now with the polling where it's at. The SNP are going to lose

06:17 seats. I mean, there is a view among at least Scottish Tories that they won't make a single

06:21 gain, as in the SNP won't make a single gain. They will just make losses. And if we think back to

06:26 that de facto referendum plan, you know, win and win the most seats in Westminster, and that's

06:30 independence. Well, it doesn't look like that's going to happen. So I think it's it this will be

06:36 obviously a terrible election for the Conservatives. But if you're a Scottish Conservative,

06:40 who maybe puts the union ahead of your own party, and we know that Douglas Ross has gone in trouble

06:44 before for kind of advocating for people to maybe vote Labour in seats where the Tories can't win.

06:49 This is probably a good thing for you. I think this could be a real death knell, or at least

06:54 another huge delay to the independence movement ever getting anywhere.

06:58 Indeed, interesting times ahead. That's fair to say. Thanks very much for that, Alex. We will be

07:05 all over it as Scotsman.com throughout the day, as you would expect, all the way it's news and

07:09 analysis. If you can please do subscribe to us, then you'll be able to read and watch all of our

07:15 content. And if you are out and about today, please do pick up a paper as ever for me and

07:20 from Alex. Bye for now.

Scotsman Daily Bulletin Thursday 23 May

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