- 11 months ago
Alistair Grant, Andrew Quinn, David Bol and Rachel Amery discuss how the UK Labour conference in Liverpool went - and what it means for the party in Scotland. Plus, the team look ahead to the Tory conference in Manchester.
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00:00The Steamy, a politics podcast from The Scotsman.
00:11Hello and welcome to The Steamy, The Scotsman's politics podcast. I'm Alistair Grant, The
00:16Scotsman's political editor, and it's been a busy week for the Labour Party, which is
00:19coming out of its annual conference in Liverpool, during which the party attempted to lick its
00:24wounds and forge a path forward following a bruising period for Prime Minister Sir Keir
00:29Starmer. But how did it go? Did Keir Starmer do enough to show Labour can take the fight
00:33to Nigel Farage's Reform UK? Well, to discuss all that and more, I'm joined by Andrew Quinn,
00:38the Scotsman's Westminster correspondent, by David Ball, the Scotsman's deputy political
00:42editor, and by Rachel Emery, the Scotsman's political correspondent. Andrew, you were down
00:47in Liverpool for the conference. What was your impression of it?
00:50Andrew Quinn Yeah, I mean, it was, I guess it wasn't as much excitement as last
00:58year. Last year, there was, there was huge excitement. They'd just been elected. And
01:02even the year before, which was the first conference I've been to, there was lots of
01:06excitement because it looked like they were going to be elected. So yeah, there wasn't
01:10as much of a buzz about it, to be honest. And I would say particularly around Scotland as
01:15well. Before, Anas Sawa had been a really big figure. They won the relevant Hamilton West
01:22by-election in 2023. Last year, Scotland was the main place where Labour made gains in terms
01:27of percentage of the vote. But this year, even though we've got the Holyrood election next
01:33year, it seemed like people weren't really thinking about Scotland. And yeah, they're thinking
01:37about reform. As you mentioned, people were a bit, yeah, they're worried that reform are going
01:43to be the next government. They're well ahead of Labour on the polls. I think it's consistently
01:47around 10% ahead of Labour. So that was the main thing that underlined it all was Nigel
01:54Farage and reform. And you saw that during the speeches when there was stuff slagging off
01:58Farage and reform were huge cheers. And Keir Starmer really focused on that and his speech
02:03as well. And he had a go at Farage about the politics of grievance, which he also said kind
02:10of replies to the SNP as well, saying both of them want Britain to fail. So yeah, I think
02:16it went relatively well for the Prime Minister in that sense, particularly his speech. He
02:22managed to have a go at reform and basically managed to say that they're criticising reform,
02:29but not necessarily reformed voters in criticising their policy to deport people with indefinite
02:36leave to remain, which yeah, they're saying is a racist policy. So in that sense, it went
02:43quite well. But we didn't see a lot of policy, which was quite surprising because it looks
02:47like Labour are probably going to scrap the two child benefit cap. So it seemed a bit surprising
02:52that that didn't come up in his speech. But yeah, I think people thought it was generally
02:58positive, partly because they were also really worried about Andy Burnham, the Greater Manchester
03:03Premier. So they'd be really worried that he would, he would kind of dominate the conference
03:09with his leadership ambitions. But I think the consensus is that Burnham had overplayed
03:13his hand beforehand. And then that meant that he wasn't as big a figure at the conference
03:18as he could have been.
03:20Yeah, what did you make of Keir Starmer's speech? I mean, you touched on the kind of some
03:24of the big themes there, the fact that he's attacked reform, he kind of painted the kind of political
03:29situation as Labour versus reform. And I thought, you know, I watched it obviously remotely,
03:35I thought it was one of his better speeches, you know, he's never going to be one of the
03:40politics great, you know, speakers, he's not a kind of a Tony Blair figure or someone who's
03:46going to kind of set the conference room alight. But he did have a message. And he did have
03:50a kind of, you know, a theme that he was getting across. And I thought some of it was quite effective.
03:54Yeah, for sure. He actually appeared more relaxed than he is quite a lot of the time. He appeared
04:00a lot more natural. Rachel Reeves was the same in her speech. She definitely came across as
04:06much more relaxed. I'm not entirely sure why that is, because this is probably the most
04:10difficult period that they've had. But yeah, I think the message he had was right, is that
04:16like, we do need to tackle immigration, that's kind of Labour's general view. But we're not
04:24going to do it like reform, we're not going to be deporting people who your neighbours, people
04:29who work here legally. And so yeah, they're really setting it, like they're basically saying
04:35what reform is saying is beyond the pale. And that is dipping into racism. Yeah, I thought
04:41what he did do, the speech was, it was pretty good in terms of the message he was getting
04:46across. But again, there wasn't a lot of detail on how he's going to turn things around. And
04:51that's the issue, isn't it? They're well behind in the polls. And if he's going to turn things
04:57around, there's going to be, there's going to need to be policy really, which does that.
05:01Maybe they're hoping that the policy that they put in place, just it will take a little
05:06bit more time to come to fruition. And, but yeah, and there wasn't too much of a signal
05:13of what's going to happen at the budget. They're kind of setting up that there's going to be
05:17some tax rises, they're not warning against it completely. So that looks more likely.
05:23But yeah, I think, yeah, like you said, the rhetoric was quite good in the speech. But when
05:29you're that far behind in the polls, you need to be doing something else ahead of the Scottish
05:35election. Anyway, I guess he doesn't need tons of policy UK wide because the election's
05:41not for an hour four years. But if they want to win in Scotland next year, then something's
05:45going to need to change. And it doesn't seem like anything's going to change at the moment.
05:51So it was suggested that they're not going to have it in them to turn it around, which
05:56I'm sure Anastar War will be delighted with me saying. But yeah, it doesn't, it doesn't
06:01look like they will. Yeah, I mean,
06:05I was just going to say, I mean, I'm sorry, on you go, on you go.
06:09Yeah, I was just going to say Scottish Labour were pretty optimistic, though, if that's
06:13what you're going to ask me about. And yeah, they were really, really upbeat, surprisingly
06:19upbeat. I really thought it might have been a bit of doom and gloom from them. But Anastar
06:23War is generally quite an upbeat sort of guy. And they generally believe that the polls aren't
06:32completely correct. That there's more hatred of the SNP than there is of the Labour government.
06:39And that when it comes to that, voters will recognise that they're voting for a Scottish
06:43Parliament election, rather than a referendum on the UK government. So that's what they're
06:47hopeful about. They're talking about the Hamilton by-election earlier this year. They kept talking
06:52about a bar head council by-election in East Renfrewshire, saying that these show that Labour
06:57are doing really well. But I don't know, they really need to turn things around because there's
07:04a risk that they're going to come third at the moment behind reform. So the polls, we need
07:10to start tightening. And I'm not saying that can't happen because there's plenty of time
07:14and we, well, not plenty of time, but there's several months and things can't change really
07:20quickly. We've seen it at other elections, but the likelihood of that happening gets smaller
07:25and smaller every day.
07:26Yeah, definitely. I mean, I was interested actually speaking to Blair McDougal for a kind
07:31of interview last week. And he is obviously a new minister in the government, but he previously
07:37headed up Better Together. That's maybe what people would know him best from. But his whole
07:41view is exactly that, that kind of the polls don't reflect this idea that when it comes to
07:47the crunch, when it comes to the election, that Labour would be able to build a coalition of
07:51voters in a way that other parties wouldn't be able to do. I think the difficulty for Labour
07:54is that that message that Keir Starmer has of Labour versus reform, that Keir Starmer is
07:59this kind of figurehead that can stand up to reform, doesn't have as much weight in Scotland
08:03where the SNP also paint themselves as the kind of bulwark against reform. So I think that's
08:09it's a kind of difficult dynamic there. And I don't think Keir Starmer's speech was really
08:13aimed at that. It didn't really kind of keep that in mind. And I think there's a kind of,
08:18there's almost a feeling with Labour conference, I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, that they seem
08:21to sort of, the wider party seems to have kind of forgotten that there's elections in Scotland
08:27and Wales next year, they're certainly not, it certainly doesn't seem to be forefront of
08:31their minds. I mean, do you think those Scottish and Welsh elections in May next year are going
08:35to be a crunch point for Starmer? Because there's a lot of talk that if Labour performed badly
08:39in them, he won't survive as leader? Yeah, I think that's true. Look, if they come
08:45third in both of them, then I don't see how, I think there'll be so much pressure on him
08:52after that, that he could go, it kind of depends who they can line up. It looks like Andy Burnham
08:59there won't be now unless something happens. But yeah, it didn't seem that there was a huge
09:04focus on the Scottish and Welsh elections, which, which is crazy, because they're the
09:08ones that are coming next year. And Scotland really, this is their best chance of beating
09:14the SNP since, since 2011, maybe in 2011, you might have expected them to do that. But
09:19now there's, there's no Nicola Sturgeon, there's no Alex Salmond, the two huge figures of the
09:24SNP. The SNP are down about 15 points from where they were last time. So it's a great opportunity
09:31for them. But yeah, they don't seem to be seizing that and focusing on it. And Wales, Labour have
09:37won every election ever, I'm pretty sure. And Wales are like, since universal suffrage, they
09:43won pretty much every election. They're almost definitely going to lose. But yeah, so it seemed,
09:48it seemed mad that there wasn't more focus on that. The PM did mention Scotland in his speech,
09:54but it was mostly he just had a bit of a swipe about the SNP want Britain to fail. So this is what,
10:00this is where I think the policy will be important. I guess the only thing is, and I did an interview
10:05with Anna Sarwa and Douglas Alexander, they were talking about actually our manifesto is going to
10:10have lots of stuff. But that'll be released pretty close to the election. It doesn't give them tons
10:17of time to make up the ground because they're well behind. So yeah, and if they do finish third behind
10:24reform, that's pretty terrible. And yeah, it's a damning verdict on the PM. And really, is he going
10:32to be able to stay in power next time if he doesn't win a decent amount of seats in Scotland and Wales
10:39at the next general election? Almost definitely not. So that will probably encourage folk to get rid of him.
10:44David, how do you think Scottish Labour will be feeling coming out of this conference? I mean,
10:48as Andrew said, Anna Sarwa is an upbeat guy. He's always got loads of energy. There was excruciating
10:53footage coming out of that conference of him at the, I think it was a Young Labour TikTok party,
10:58kind of dancing and rapping, which, yeah, certainly made me cringe. But what do you think the party
11:04will be, will be thinking coming out of this? Yeah, I think they are pretty upbeat. And as you said,
11:09Anna Sarwa is Mr. Positive. But it does look like they are just in a bit of denial about where they're
11:16heading next year. As Andrew said, this is their best chance to actually win in Scotland. It was
11:22made for them to do this. They were matching Labour in the, matching the SNP in the polls ahead of last
11:28year's general election, but that is gone because of the actions at Westminster. And yeah, they think
11:34that people will come back if it is a chance to oust the SNP, but there's no guarantee. And people are
11:40exercised by the actions of the UK government. However, Labour want to frame it that this is a Hollywood
11:45election. People vote on all sorts of reasons. You can't control that. And it is very complacent
11:52to just assume that these voters who were not loyal Labour voters, they were, they just came
11:57and voted for them to get rid of the Tories last year, that they're going to come swarming back to
12:01help them. So they are in a bit of denial. And I do think, discussed it there, that Labour are very
12:08good at pointing out the SNP's flaws and where people are frustrated with a party being in government
12:13for so long, but we're yet to see what they would do differently. And all that people have to go on
12:18at the moment is the UK government's record. And that's not very popular. Whatever you make of it, the
12:23polls show that the Labour in government is not popular with the public across the UK and Scotland.
12:29I think that is a huge problem for Anasawa that he has failed so far to demonstrate how he would
12:35improve things for Scotland and give people a positive kind of vision of what a Scottish Labour
12:40government up here would look like. So we do need to see some sort of action from Scottish Labour is
12:46obviously it was it was more positive than I expected the conference to be in terms of that
12:52message from Keir Starmer. I don't know whether framing the SNP and reform in the same breadth as being
12:59quite a problem. It was a very sensible move given some of those voters will have gone to the SNP or
13:07will be flittering between the two parties. So that was also a risk from Keir Starmer but you can see
13:12why he was trying to frame the SNP as an opposition as well as reform.
13:18Well Labour are obviously not the only ones having their annual conference. The Conservatives are
13:25meeting in Manchester this coming weekend. After that we've got the SNP in Aberdeen and we've got the
13:30Scottish Greens, the Scottish Liberal Democrats. Rachel, the Tories are in an extremely tricky position at the
13:35moment. I mean to be blunt they're getting ripped to shreds by reform north and south of the border.
13:40Is there any hope for them as they go into this party conference do you think?
13:44It's difficult to sort of try and find out positives for the party isn't it?
13:49We're looking at the party in Scotland just now as you were saying it's not been a great few months for
13:53them since Russell Finlay took over they have had three people leave the party, two have been defections to
14:00other parties including of course for the summer holidays and we saw Graham Simpson defecting to
14:06reform in the Scottish Parliament. So not a great start for Russell Finlay there and so his circle
14:13is getting smaller and smaller. That being said when we did I have spoken to a few people who are still in
14:17the Conservative Party saying it's a good thing how did the party recover and they were saying well
14:23those people who have left the party in recent months were perhaps the ones that were causing a bit of
14:29dissent causing unhappiness within the party and so yes the circle is smaller but perhaps the circle
14:34is more loyal and stronger therefore. So the Conservatives themselves don't see that as an issue going
14:40forward they're trying to paint it as but the ones who are causing problems have gone they've gone
14:44elsewhere now we are focused on the ones who are true Conservatives that are wanting to stay in the
14:48party just now. So that's quite interesting to sort of look at there but when it comes to the polls just
14:54nothing seems to be really cutting through for the Conservatives. They've got their lines that they're going
14:59with. I think the line that we see in pretty much every press release, every speech that we see from the
15:04Scottish Conservatives is common sense or common sense approach to politics and very much trying to
15:09sort of show themselves as being I suppose not quite anti-establishment but basically trying to say
15:14that we are not the the ones who are embedded in Hollywood. Russell really can get away with that
15:19because he has had a long career in journalism before he went into politics so he can kind of cut through with
15:24that but there's plenty of Scottish politicians in the Scottish Conservatives who have been in
15:29Hollywood for a long time. Murdo Fraser for example, there's one example I was speaking to him last
15:34week at a visit in Stirling. He's someone who's been in the Scottish Parliament for years and so to try and
15:39paint this image of we're not the ones embedded in Hollywood can be quite difficult when you've got
15:43figures in the party holding senior positions who have been here for years so that's a great problem for them
15:48as well but yeah just nothing seems to be cutting through for them nothing they seem to do seems to
15:52sort of be hitting in the polls in the same way and they're quite keen to sort of try and not
15:58lean into sort of the rhetoric that's going around with people defecting to reform but it's a really
16:03hard narrative for them to escape right now especially with what we've been seeing over the past few months.
16:09Andrew I mean what's the view from Westminster here I mean obviously the Scottish Tory party and the
16:14Westminster Tory party sometimes have quite different takes on things you know
16:17in the past we've seen divisions between the two parties particularly under Boris Johnson perhaps
16:22when he was sometimes at loggerheads with Douglas Ross when he was a Scottish Tory leader but I mean
16:27what's what's your perception of the Tory party's position in in Westminster and the fact that they
16:33they seem to just be completely drowned out by reform?
16:37Yeah I mean they don't seem to really know what they would do differently to reform I think is the
16:44issue isn't it like they're having defections Danny Kruger went recently they're hemorrhaging
16:50votes to reform and it's it's hard to see what they can do to really make it look different because
16:57they're kind of they're going for the same policy as well pretty much they're they're going for a
17:02right-wing conservative party and they're yeah and they've got the record of being in government
17:09to deal with they've got all that baggage so it's very hard for them I mean
17:14Kemi Badenoch's likely to have very very poor elections like they're going to have Scottish
17:20Welsh and English local government elections I would say the consensus is that she's not going to last
17:25beyond that and probably the next leader will be Robert Jenrick because he's the one who's always
17:30floating about the justice secretary he stood against Kemi Badenoch before but perhaps it will also be
17:35someone who's a bit more moderate and it could be James Cleverley the former home and foreign secretary
17:43David I mean Rachel obviously mentioned Russell Finlay and his attempts to kind of cut through
17:48the public and I think he's probably had a a tough time of doing that you know he's had a tough time
17:53of actually being a kind of recognizable figure amongst the Scottish public I wouldn't have thought a
17:57lot of people outside of the Hollywood bubble which even now really know who he is it weirdly if
18:02you're really really into Scottish politics Douglas Ross has actually been coming up
18:06more recently because he obviously had that seagull rammy in Holyroods with the former
18:11SNP minister Jamie Hepburn and he's had all sorts of publicity around that but he's also been an
18:16extremely effective committee convener he's the convener of the education committee he's been very good at
18:23it I think by common consensus he's really scrutinized university finances for example with Dundee
18:29university chiefs he was particularly strong when it came to questioning them at the committee
18:34what's your what's your take I guess in the Russell Finlay's problems when it comes to cutting through
18:39I mean he was a journalist so he is he is well known among journalists I just don't think that really
18:44extends beyond as I say the Holyrood bubble yeah I do have some sympathy for Russell Finlay because
18:50a lot of this is out of his hands as we mentioned Kevin Bandmark has been a bit of a disaster for the
18:54Tories um and for him um but as you mentioned Douglas Ross like him or loathe him and a lot within the
19:00Scottish Tories at Holyrood do loathe him that was why he stepped down but he's a huge asset for them
19:06I do think maybe Russell Finlay should consider like giving him a more prominent role because
19:10as you mentioned he's he's been a very effective um on the education committee one of the best in
19:17Holyrood in that role um and obviously he drew attention to essentially got uh an SNP minister
19:22sacked for winding it up enough for them to kind of overstep a line so I do think there is a role
19:29there for him to play one that maybe some of the party would be a bit uncomfortable with him playing
19:34and obviously it may undermine Russell's leadership um but I do think they are a bit desperate now and
19:40they have a bit of a similar problem to the UK Tories in that
19:44even though they may not they're the main opposition in Holyrood that isn't how people see them
19:48uh people see Labour because the narrative is between them and the SNP as being the biggest
19:54opposition in Scotland and that must be quite frustrating for Russell Finlay um and I don't
19:59know how he he overcomes that and they're trying to be extreme and trying to kind of match reform but
20:05it's backfiring people aren't really listening and I really I don't know where they go from here because
20:10that election no matter what he does looks like they're gonna lose a lot of that MSPs to reform
20:16will probably signal the end of his leadership um and he's just not been able to really do what
20:22what he wants to do there's been a lot of talk about people behind the scenes in the Tories
20:25maybe pushing some of their the reform uh sort of policies uh I don't know whether he he is
20:32comfortable with a lot of the rhetoric but he obviously feels that he needs to kind of match reform
20:38but no one is is interested in a kind of reform light version if people want their policies reform
20:44are bringing and the UK Tories see the same problem that they'll just vote for reform or they'll back
20:48reform so they really are in a bit of a difficult position and yeah I think Douglas Ross being given
20:55a more prominent or vocal uh role would would be an idea worth considering yeah well we should say
21:03briefly that other things have been happening in Scottish politics it's not just been all about party
21:07conferences earlier this week the Scottish Government issued fresh guidance on its trans policies for
21:12schools health boards uh other staff Rachel you covered this partly for the Scotsman what's the
21:19background to this and what is the latest on it yeah so you might remember the summer holidays in
21:24particular there was a lot of discussion over single sex spaces particularly after um the Supreme Court
21:30judgment back in April and the government has been coming under a lot of criticism for potentially for not
21:36having clear guidance in all of these areas they've said they're waiting for guidance from equalities
21:41networks for example um so we're seeing a bit more of that this week so I think one of the first things
21:46we saw was um Education Secretary Jenny Gill Roost issuing new guidance for schools so now all schools in
21:52Scotland have to provide um single sex toilets in all schools um criticism of course because obviously the
21:59schools went back last month they've already been in in in class for for a few weeks now already but that came out
22:05earlier in the week the other thing that happened this week was um there's a there's a policy called
22:10the trans and non-binary inclusion program and this is for government staff so civil servants and people
22:15like that a line has now been removed from that guidance now that line was saying that you could use
22:20the facilities that you feel the most comfortable with that has now been removed and the government has now
22:25said that um trans staff should be using toilets and changing rooms for example that align to their biological
22:32sex not their gender identity and ministers have also went to health boards as well to remind them of the
22:37importance of following the law and and citing the supreme court verdict back in April as well and on top of that
22:44NHS Fife which which I'm sure people who you're listening to this podcast have been hearing lots of
22:50NHS Fife over the summer because it is being sued by one of their nurses Sandy Peggy over um single sex spaces in in the hospitals there. They have now updated in their equality in their equality in the
23:00impact assessment it's called um to say that staff now must use facilities that align with their biological sex as well so lots of guidance being updated this week
23:12um some of it referring to health boards some referring to government staff some referring to schools for example so plenty of updates there plenty more stories coming out of it and um yeah it doesn't say it's going away it's going to continue rumbling on I think until until we get to the election then throughout the election campaign too.
23:28Yeah and we still haven't obviously got the uh haven't heard the end of the Sandy Peggy tribunal which is going to be coming back in the coming months as well but that's all we've got time for this week please tune in again next week when we'll have all the latest from Scottish politics in the meantime please stay tuned to the Scotsman's website for all the latest comment news analysis video you name it it's there thank you very much for listening.
23:52This is me a politics podcast from the Scotsman.
23:56This is me a politics podcast from the Scotsman.
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