Scotsman Daily Bulletin, Monday, July 8

The Scotsman

Deputy Editor Alan Young and Political Correspondent Rachel Amery discuss the stories of the day

Transcript

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

00:09Editor of the Scotsman. I'm joined today by our political correspondent Rachel Emery to take a

00:15look at the main headlines. Hi Rachel. Good morning. Let's have a look, if we can, at the

00:22front page first. And there you go, we lead on the new Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer on a visit

00:30to Scotland just days after being elected and he is pictured there with First Minister John Swinney.

00:38As you can see our headline is he is vowing to reset the relationship with Holyrood. There's a

00:46lot to do, however, and the SNP doesn't have its troubles to seek after Friday's election and that

00:55I think, Rachel, is where I want to start. So we've heard growing discontent, I think it's fair

01:03to say, over the weekend following the SNP's near wipeout at Westminster. This leaves John

01:11Swinney clearly in a really difficult position. So my question to you, and it's a big one, where

01:18now for the SNP? I know exactly where now. This was a disastrous election for the SNP. Even the worst

01:26polling I don't think was quite as bad as it actually was in the end. Only nine seats reduced

01:33from this massive majority that they had down to single figures was almost unthinkable

01:40not that long ago for the SNP. Also completely wiped out in the central belt, Glasgow, Edinburgh,

01:46no SNP MPs left in those areas which is also quite surprising. So the question is now what happens

01:52next? Now John Swinney in a certain sense kind of has a bit of a get-out clause. He was only SNP

01:57leader and First Minister for I think about two weeks before this campaign was called. So he kind

02:03of does have a bit of a bit of wriggle room there in trying to say that he's just in the door,

02:08he didn't have a lot, there was a lot to do and all the rest of it. So he does have a bit of a

02:12get-out clause there. He was at the Perth count which is what I was at over election night and

02:16he said that he's not going to resign as SNP leader. He's going to continue leading the party

02:22further on to the next couple of years and into the 2026 Holyrood election as well. So he's keen

02:28to stay put and stay in place. The problem then comes is I think it's probably the independence

02:33strategy that hasn't worked here. Their independence strategy was they have a mandate

02:39for independence if they win the most seats at this election which of course they were

02:42not even close to winning at this election. So I think the question for them now is how do they now

02:48fix this idea of their independence strategy? What do they have to do? Because that is what's

02:54falling down and falling around them just now and so that's what they're going to need to fix

02:58first and foremost. You mentioned SNP being wiped out in Glasgow, which was a big moment,

03:05but also in Edinburgh one of the most high-profile MPs in the party lost her seat, Joanna Cherry,

03:12and she was particularly vocal about what she sees as the reasons for the party's position.

03:22Yes, Joanna Cherry lost her Edinburgh South West seat, I think to Scott Arthur, I think his name

03:26is from the Labour Party, one of the Edinburgh councillors, and yeah one of the biggest names

03:31I think on the list of SNP casualties at this election. Now probably as expected she's not been

03:37very quiet about this, she's very outspoken on a lot of things and she did obviously have a rather

03:43fractured relationship with the former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon and she is very much

03:48placing the blame on her. She says that Nicola Sturgeon needs to apologise to the former MPs

03:53like herself who lost their seats at this election. She says she is entirely to blame

03:58because of this confusion over the independent strategy and lack of competency is what she's

04:04said as well in the leadership of the Scottish Government over the past few years. So definitely

04:08pulling out a few punches already with what she thinks has gone wrong and definitely isn't saying

04:14that it's herself, she thinks it's others within the party that have caused these issues. There'll

04:19be other names as well coming out and saying what they have to say on the back of all of this

04:23because of course there's now a lot of out-of-work SNP MPs and what do they do next because yes we

04:31have the Scottish elections in two years time but there's already a lot of SNP members in Holyrood

04:38so it's going to be really interesting to see what all these very experienced and often quite

04:43well-known figures, what's they going to do now, what does their future hold for them, where do

04:48they go from here. It's a loss of people at once in one party to be out of work. I don't think this

04:53is something the SNP has ever experienced before. It's going to be quite interesting to see how the

04:58SNP handles having all these out-of-work high-profile members now. Indeed and what they say

05:06as well because as Joanna Cherry proved they're not going to be quiet even. Thanks very much

05:12for that. Rachael please keep an eye on customer.com throughout the day for all the very latest news

05:18and analysis. If you can do subscribe then you'll be able to read and watch absolutely everything we

05:23do and if you're out and about today as ever please do pick up a copy of the paper.

05:28But from me and from Rachael it's bye for now. Bye-bye.

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