The Scotsman at the Labour Party Conference in Liverpool 2025 #RachelReeves #Monday

The Scotsman

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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Roundup of the UK Labour Conference so far. I'm Alistair Grant,

00:05the Scotsman's political editor and I'm joined live from Liverpool by our Westminster correspondent

00:10Andrew Quinn. Andrew, you're not long out of the Chancellor Rachel Reeves' conference speech where

00:16she acknowledged the difficulties the government has faced but kind of emphasised the difference

00:20a UK Labour government has made. She said she won't take risks with public finances but also

00:25spoke of further tests in the months ahead and also launched an attack on Nigel Farage's

00:31Reform UK. What did you make of the speech and how did it go down in the conference room itself?

00:37Yeah, I mean actually it was probably one of Rachel Reeves' stronger performances since

00:43becoming Chancellor but even when she was Shadow Chancellor as well. She seemed a lot more relaxed

00:49and a lot more comfortable generally. Not to be too harsh but she's kind of known for being a bit

00:54wooden and not particularly natural but it seemed to go really well. I mean a thing that happened

00:59very early on and she was interrupted by a pro-Palestine protester who was shouting about

01:04genocide and about the starvation of people in Gaza. Now she, I thought at first maybe Reeves was

01:11going to be a little bit rattled by that but she actually did very well. She said she was like

01:16she acknowledges the cause of it but the UK government's recognising Palestine now and then

01:22obviously hit out with it. The line that people in Labour often do now about a dig at Jeremy Corbyn

01:28that they're now a party of government and not a party of protest. But yeah, I think a really

01:33interesting thing that she did was she was really focusing on the Tories. They've basically been

01:37not mentioned at all at this conference which is really odd. Obviously they were in government for

01:4314 years until last year Labour's main rivals but the polls are different now and reforms seem to be

01:49Labour's main rivals. But I think Reeves was making quite a good point and she said it several times in

01:55the speech that never let anyone say that there's no difference between a Labour government and a Tory

02:01government. Basically she's making the point public spending is almost always higher under Labour and

02:07generally you would say they focus a lot more on tackling issues like poverty and more money for education

02:13for the NHS and stuff. So she kind of seemed to be suggesting that also there could be some maybe tax rises

02:22in the budget. She was saying we face a really difficult kind of global situation so that that would be a

02:27possibility. But yeah, she also had a go at Nigel Farage where in reform over there, their idea that they

02:35wanted to deport people. She mentioned that this morning as well and when she was in the morning

02:41round in media. So she covered quite a lot of bases and yeah I guess she didn't give too much like

02:48policy details sort of thing. She did and there was a little bit for England to do with libraries for

02:53schools but Scotland didn't get mentioned at all actually which if you've read I did an opinion piece

03:00about how actually Scotland's not really a focus at all for this year's conference. So it's quite

03:05interesting because it was definitely, she mentioned it last year and the PM mentioned it last

03:10year as well. The PM's probably more likely to mention it when he has a speech tomorrow but yeah

03:15I thought Reid's speech overall was relatively upbeat for her and yeah she seemed pretty composed.

03:22Well what's been your impression of the Labour conference so far? I mean the whole thing initially

03:26risks being overshadowed by Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham's very obvious manoeuvring.

03:31Yeah yeah so I mean there was a bit of a dig at him as well from Reeves. She was basically,

03:37she was talking about public spending and saying oh there's people who say that we shouldn't worry

03:41about the economy and we should just, yeah I don't know, open the taps and spend money and she

03:48actually said that's dangerous to do that. So yeah that was definitely having a bit of a go but

03:54Burnham I think the general consensus among MPs that I've spoken to is that he's actually

04:01overplayed his hand because he did a couple of interviews and yeah he, the thing that Reeves was

04:06referring to was he said we kind of shouldn't be too influenced by the bond markets, a bit technical

04:13sort of stuff but that was kind of laughed at by a lot of Labour figures because the bond markets can

04:20really determine the economy. So I think if he hadn't done that then he perhaps would have been

04:27looming a bit larger. If he'd only done one interview, he did a couple of interviews,

04:31he'd be looming a bit larger or will he, won't he? But now it feels like he's kind of, he's done too much

04:36and yeah he's been, he's undermined the PM too much really that it's actually united people behind

04:42Keir Starmer even if they're not, they don't necessarily think he's doing that great a job,

04:47they think he could improve and they think he could go in the future. It's kind of made people

04:52think well we don't want to get rid of him now and we don't really like what Andy Burnham's doing,

04:58it's a bit too brazen. So yeah it could have been a very different conference in that sense but now

05:04the PM seems pretty secure I would think and Burnham would need, something would need to change

05:10now for him to really be the next favourite for Labour leader. Yeah and obviously for us I mean

05:16you've touched on this a little bit already but one of the big stories is how the UK Labour government's

05:20performance impacts on Scottish Labour and its leader Anas Sarwar ahead of the Holyrood election

05:26next year. Now you're sitting down with Anas Sarwar and Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander a bit later

05:32on but what do you think are some of the key issues for them out of this conference and what's the

05:37feeling within Scottish Labour at the moment? Yeah I mean they're really, Anas Sarwar has spoken

05:44twice at this conference and really he's been trying to hammer home that people are better off

05:53under Labour. Now I'm not sure many people feel that better off, yeah maybe it's going to come but

05:59they're going on about how mortgage rates have gone down and how minimum wage has increased. So that's

06:06really what they're trying to say, they're trying to big up things that the UK government has done

06:11which are good but I think the problem is that some of the bad things that outweigh that and like

06:18the winter fuel payment rate they've pretty much U-turned on that but doing that cut straight after

06:24being elected really really has badly harmed them and there may be more damage to come as well because

06:30pensioners, people on the state pension could be getting taxed for the first time after this budget and

06:36that would be just before the Scottish election and pensioners obviously vote in huge numbers so

06:42yeah I mean that could be quite negative for the Scottish Labour Party. I think really what they

06:49want to do and what they've been saying is we're trying to make the election not about

06:55the UK government, it's about the Scottish government, it's about who runs Scotland. That's what they really

07:00want to do here, they've been mentioned in the SNP's record they always say like one in six Scots on an

07:04NHS waiting list blah blah. I think that's a real challenge for them, they believe they can do it or

07:12at least they're telling the journalists that they can do it that when it comes to the Holyrood election

07:16people will be thinking about that but there's no way they can get away from the record of the UK

07:21government, it's the same party and so it'll be a real struggle for them but also it could be a good

07:27thing if things I know there's not a lot of time but say people do feel slightly better off come

07:33April, May next year then they can point and be like well actually this is because of the UK government.

07:40So yeah it's been an interesting time but as I said earlier there's not been as much interest in

07:44Scotland at all at this so I mean when Anna Sarwar was speaking the chamber was about a third full now

07:52that that was in real contrast to last year and the year before there was much more interest

07:57I mean 2023 it was because the Rutherglen Hamilton West by-election had happened, Michael Shanks had won

08:03with a really big vote share there and last year obviously there were 37 Scottish Labour MPs elected

08:10it was a place where the vote went up the most so there was a lot of interest in Scotland but I think

08:16because it doesn't look like Scottish Labour are going to go into government next year there's a lot less

08:21interest and because basically everyone's talking about reform and everyone's afraid of that so

08:27even they had a Scots night last night where it's just kind of like where a lot of Scottish Labour

08:32figures come together that wasn't that busy whereas the year before it was absolutely packed and it was

08:39in a bigger room so it shows you Scotland isn't really top of the agenda I guess it's reform and the

08:45looming budget are the two things which are really key. Yeah it's sort of remarkable in a way though that that

08:51is the case considering the Holyrood election is literally a matter of months away and it's such

08:55an important election for Scottish Labour for the impact on reform in Scotland but just finally

09:02what are the other things coming up at conference for people to keep an eye out for I mean you mentioned

09:06the fact we still to hear from Keir Starmer the Prime Minister but we've also still to hear from

09:11people like Wes Streeting as well these kind of big Labour figures. Yeah yeah so I guess it will be

09:16interesting to hear Wes Streeting he's a health secretary obviously health has evolved in Scotland

09:21but he's again one of the figures who's mentioned as a potential future Labour leader so yeah we'll hear

09:27from him he'll be on the main stage we've got the Prime Minister tomorrow I mean that that'll be huge

09:31it's all it's always the main event and we've also got on Wednesday morning we've got deputy leadership

09:39hustings as well so it's a little bit different the Wednesday tends to be a bit quiet and not that

09:44not that many folk kind of hanging about for it but because of that the deputy leadership

09:49hustings there'll probably be a few more people there and also we're going to have from Scotland

09:54this is particularly interesting but Ed Miliband the energy secretary is speaking on Wednesday

09:59so we'll be hanging on waiting to see if there's any announcement on GB Energy which is obviously

10:04headquartered in Aberdeen. Yeah I think it'll be fascinating actually to hear from Ed Miliband but

10:09thank you very much Andrew and please do if you're watching this keep on top of all the Scotsman's

10:14coverage on the Scotsman's website uh updated throughout the day of all the latest from Labour

10:18conference and any other political news that's happening and do pick up a copy of the paper as

10:23well thank you very much

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