Scotsman Daily Bulletin Wednesday 10 September

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Wednesday. My name's Dale

00:12Miller. I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our political editor Alastair Grant.

00:19We're obviously back from summer recess. It has been a busy return as well. I'll talk through

00:25the front page of Today's Scotsman firstly. And we splashed on an exclusive from Deputy

00:31Political Editor David Boll. The Scottish Government is pressing ahead with a standalone

00:38sexual offence court. And we have some quotes today from Angela Constance talking about the

00:44fact that they're looking for it to cut the legal case backlog. In some cases, there's been reports

00:51of significant wait times stretching through months to actually get courts, to get cases seen.

00:58Angela Constance and the Scottish Government think that this move will help with efforts

01:03and as she says, is capable of clearing the backlog. You can read the full details of that story

01:09at scotsman.com. And Alastair, I wanted to talk to you about the picture on the front page there,

01:15which is a meeting that took place between John Swinney and Donald Trump yesterday evening about

01:237pm UK time. Can you just talk us through what happened when John met Donald and what else happened

01:31during the trip to the US as far as we know? Yeah, so this is John Swinney's kind of whistle

01:36stop trip to the US to lobby on behalf of the whiskey industry. Essentially, he went out on Monday.

01:41We didn't really know anything about it until he was out there already in Washington DC. And they

01:47were very kind of coy about his plans there in terms of who he'd been meeting. The expectation was he

01:54would try and get meeting with Donald Trump. It wasn't clear if that would happen. But it did happen

01:58last night, UK time. And John Swinney on a post to social media afterwards was saying he had a

02:04constructive discussion with Donald Trump in the White House about whiskey tariffs. The current 10% tariff is

02:10costing the whiskey industry 4 million pounds a week in lost exports. That's according to the

02:15Scotch Whiskey Association. It's worth saying the US is Scotland's largest export market for whiskey.

02:20It's worth almost a billion pounds or certainly was in 2024. So I think John Swinney will quite rightly

02:27view his Oval Office meeting with the President as something of a coup. It's not often that a First

02:33Minister has got access to the Oval Office. Of course, it remains to be seen whether it gets results.

02:39It's worth saying that John Swinney and Donald Trump seemed to get on when they met in Scotland

02:44in July during Donald Trump's visit to Scotland. Donald Trump described the First Minister as a

02:49terrific guy. He personally thanked him during the opening of his new golf course in Aberdeenshire.

02:55So there is some kind of hope there that he might be able to come to some kind of agreement. And I

02:59thought it was interesting when John Swinney did that post to X on Tuesday evening.

03:05He was talking about having taken those arguments about whiskey tariffs to the Oval Office,

03:09to President Trump, having that constructive discussion. And then he went on to say,

03:14it's all part of my job to make sure that Scotland's interests are promoted at all times.

03:18And that's what I will always do as First Minister. And I think that last bit is key

03:22when it comes to those critics of Donald Trump, who might be uncomfortable with John Swinney going out

03:27to meet him with John Swinney, sort of sucking up to him for want of a better term. At the end of the day,

03:32John Swinney will view his job as to get results for Scotland, to do whatever is in Scotland's best

03:37interests. And the whiskey industry is such a massive industry for Scotland, both in terms of its

03:42iconic status and in terms of its monetary value. It is one of Scotland's biggest exports alongside

03:49salmon. So I think they'll be quite happy with this meeting. I think it's worth saying that although

03:53they're talking about zero for zero tariffs, so a kind of removal of whiskey tariffs altogether,

03:59I don't think that's the expectation. I think they'll be happy with anything that's below the

04:0310% current tariff. They'll view that as a victory. And if they do manage to get that,

04:09I think they'll be very pleased. And I think it'll be something of a victory for the Scottish

04:13government and the UK government, which has been facilitating this. It's worth saying that the UK

04:17government has been involved in this as well. John Swinney was staying with Peter Mandelson, the UK

04:23ambassador to the US. So yeah, I think something of a coup so far anyway.

04:28And just finally as well, I was just going to say, we're obviously expecting, people might not know

04:34this, but we are expecting a press conference that John Swinney is going to be doing in Butte House,

04:38his official residence in Edinburgh later on today, later on this afternoon. So we'll probably hear more

04:43about that meeting with Trump, what came out of it, and what he expects from the state visit that

04:50Donald Trump is going to be doing next week to the UK as well, his second state visit to the UK.

04:54Well, obviously recording this video bulletin ahead of that planned press conference at Butte House,

05:00where we'll hear more from John Swinney, and we'll bring you the latest on what he has to say about

05:04the success of our other lawyers on the trip at scotsman.com. Stay tuned. I know you've covered

05:10it in a fair bit of detail there, Alistair, but there was some critics who said John Swinney shouldn't

05:18have even met with Donald Trump when Trump, the president was here, opening a new golf course in

05:24Aberdeenshire that did take place. You seem to be of the view that, largely speaking, getting the

05:32First Minister into the Oval Office can be viewed as a positive by the Scottish Government and may be

05:38the only way to achieve the outcome of the whisky industry and business as secular.

05:44Yeah, I mean, I think obviously there are critics of Donald Trump, his presidency, what he stands for,

05:51and those critics are quite right to make their views known. But I think ultimately, in politics,

05:56you have to play the cards as they land, and he is the President of the US. That's just a fact. He is one

06:02of the most powerful men in the world. The whisky industry, as I say, is such a huge industry for

06:06Scotland. And John Swinney will just view his job to represent Scotland's interests. And in a way,

06:13if that's uncomfortable, if that involves, I said earlier, sucking up someone you might disagree with,

06:19then unfortunately, that's probably just what you have to do. And I don't think there's any point,

06:25really, in a First Minister coming in and kind of grandstanding or doing a kind of protest around

06:30this or refusing to meet him. I just don't, I'm not quite sure what that would achieve,

06:34in terms of getting a result for Scotland. And I think certainly when you listen to the

06:38Scotch Whisky Association, what they want is results. They don't want words, they don't want

06:46maybe kind of words of protest that might feel good at the time, they want results that will work for

06:51the whisky industry. So I think that'll be what's foremost in John Swinney's mind, and why he will view

06:57that meeting as something of a coup. Obviously, we need to wait and see whether it gets results,

07:02because Donald Trump is famously unpredictable.

07:07The Scotsman will also be speaking to Scottish Labour leader Anasawa today,

07:12and we will bring you the latest on what he has to say about that reshuffle, about Ian Murray

07:17effectively being sacked, and then re-added to a junior ministerial post in Sir Keir Starmer's team,

07:24and the appointment of Douglas Alexander. There has been some suggestion around what Mr Salah's

07:29involvement may have been in that outcome. And we'll hear from him later, you'll get that story

07:34at scotsman.com. Please follow us on all social media channels. If you ever can't find our politics

07:40coverage, there's a specific tab in the navigation bar off the homepage that you can reach it, or access

07:46it via the Scotsman app and go out and buy a copy of the Scotsman imprint for all the latest tomorrow.

07:52Alistair, thanks to you and thanks to everyone else for joining us.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended