00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for a Stormy Monday.
00:05My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman
00:08and I'm joined by political correspondent Rachel Amory.
00:12Rachel, there's big news in the world of Scottish politics to speak about
00:16but just firstly before we get to that, if we pull up the front page
00:20of today's Scotsman, it was hard to ignore Storm Floris
00:24that is coming through today, the Amber Alert is in force
00:30as we speak and record at this stage.
00:33Our forecast of up to 90 mile per hour winds, we will be running a live blog
00:38on all the disruption to travel and elsewhere, including to events
00:43at the festival and more widely today.
00:46You can keep up to date with every update around the storm
00:51at scotsman.com.
00:52Rachel, there's been developments on the political front, though,
00:57a big name in SNP ranks indicating they will not stand for election next year.
01:03Yes, this is Deputy First Minister Kate Forbes.
01:06She has quite literally just announced that she will not be standing
01:09for re-election in the 2026 Scottish Parliament election.
01:13This is quite unexpected.
01:14There's been a lot of other big high-profile names such as Nicola Sturgeon
01:18and Hamza Youssef and Shona Robeson.
01:20All of those names were probably not too unexpected.
01:23In fact, when it came to Nicola Sturgeon, we were all kind of waiting
01:25for the announcement.
01:27With Kate Forbes, I don't think this is quite what we were expecting.
01:29This has come as a bit of a surprise for everyone and a bit out of the blue.
01:33Now, in her statement, she points to her family.
01:35She does have a young daughter, only about two years old, I think,
01:38and she has pointed to say that she's now missing out on these crucial early years
01:42of her daughter's life because she has to spend so much time away from home,
01:46so much time in Edinburgh and has so many commitments because not only is she
01:50Deputy First Minister, she's also a local MSP and a government minister
01:54for the economy as well.
01:56And she's just basically saying it's too much to do and be a mother
02:00to a young child as well at the same time.
02:03So that is what we're hearing just now, and there's now going to be lots
02:06of questions as to what this means because there will be far-ranging implications
02:09for this announcement.
02:11Rachel, I just want to get to the optics of this next because we know there are
02:16a number of high-profile female politicians within the SNP ranks
02:20that have already announced this standing down.
02:21Kate Forbes was obviously in a significant leadership position as Deputy FM,
02:29second-in-command to John Sweeney.
02:32Some had viewed and spoken to her about her as a future leader of the party.
02:37Where does this leave the SNP in general, do you think?
02:41Yeah, so this is not great for the SNP, no matter what way you look at it here,
02:47because, as you were saying, she is the Deputy First Minister.
02:49She was very much being lined up as potentially being the next First Minister.
02:54And, of course, let's remember, she stood against Hamza Yusuf to be First Minister
02:57and came very close.
02:58And she has certainly got a faction within the party that will look to her.
03:03They are the people who look to her rather than other senior figures in the party.
03:07So it's going to have a big impact here.
03:10Now, there are a lot of female MSPs standing down in 2026.
03:13A lot of them are SNP MSPs, and these women, a lot of them have spoken about sort of the abuse
03:19that they receive and say that that's just no longer, it's no longer worth putting up with.
03:23But there's also been a lot who have pointed to caring responsibilities and childcare duties,
03:28for example.
03:29Children's Minister, Natalie Dawn Ennis, for example, she's just one off the top of my head there that I can remember,
03:36has also said that she will be standing down for that very reason.
03:39Now, Kate Forbes was the first government minister to ever take maternity leave.
03:43So that was quite significant itself.
03:46She has spoken very openly about how difficult it has been to get childcare.
03:51She's raised a lot of issues about how it doesn't work to be a politician because there's not childcare available at the parliament.
03:57And if they can't get it right in parliament, they then can't get it right outside parliament for all the other mothers.
04:02And she's also spoken about her interactions with other mothers at mum and baby groups that she's gone to,
04:08and also sort of struggles that she had post-pregnancy as well.
04:11So she has been very open about these issues in the past.
04:15But it isn't great for the SNP or for the parliament more widely to see yet another young female politician
04:22who is doing very well for herself having to stop because of childcare issues.
04:27And, Rachel, I think about Murray McKellen as well, who's got a prominent position in that cabinet,
04:32who's just returned from maternity leave, and what support is in place around her.
04:37Do you think more needs to be done on both the childcare front and regarding levels of abuse directed at female politicians?
04:46And I know you also wrote about Nicola Sturgeon and Ruth Davidson and Kezia Dugdale speaking about this yesterday.
04:53Does more need to be done to guarantee that we not only retain but actually see more women putting themselves forward for political positions?
05:02Yes, clearly it does. This survey was revealed over the weekend.
05:06It says 70% of female candidates, whether it be for Westminster, Hollywood or local council,
05:12does experience online abuse and harassment during their election campaign.
05:16And there's been many women who have spoken about the lack of support there that there is for them.
05:20It's interesting you should mention Murray McKellen, the second government minister to take maternity leave,
05:24has only just returned to the cabinet from that maternity leave.
05:29And so it'll be now interesting to look at her and see if she is able to get the support that she needs to continue on her position.
05:36Partly because she's another young woman in politics who needs that support.
05:39But also as well, now that Kate Forbes is now no longer sort of waiting in the wings to take over from John Swinney eventually,
05:46you're probably then looking to Murray McKellen as probably one of the next people on the list there.
05:50I think if you're looking at who, this is the thing, when Kate Forbes was very much being put forward as being the next leader,
05:57and that's kind of the position she was put in, we're now looking at who could potentially be in that place instead.
06:04Potentially Murray McKellen. Stephen Flynn is standing for Holyrood in 2026.
06:08He may also be a name that we've been looking at there.
06:11And it's going to be interesting to see how dynamics change within the party and the wider parliament as well in the back of this.
06:16There has been criticism of Kate Forbes in recent years, particularly over some of her views on gay marriage, for example, and sex before marriage as well.
06:28And so there'll be certain parties and certain individuals in the parliament who might be more willing to work with the SNP on the back of her not being there.
06:35So it does change a lot of dynamics.
06:37It might just be one person standing down, but it will change a lot within the party and it will change a lot within the parliament as well.
06:42So it's really quite a significant announcement this morning.
06:45You can read the news story about Kate Forbes' announcement at scotsman.com.
06:50We will also be running some analysis as Rachel has talked through of the implications of this for the SNP and probably for the Scottish Parliament more widely.
07:00That'll be available on the site later today as well.
07:03As mentioned, you can get all the latest updates around storm florists at scotsman.com.
07:09Rachel, thank you to you for joining us.
07:11Thanks to everyone else for tuning in.
07:15Bye-bye.
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