The Scotsman Bulletin Wednesday October 08 2025 #Politics

The Scotsman

Transcript

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

00:05My name's Dale Miller, I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman

00:07and I'm joined by our Deputy Political Editor, David Boll.

00:11David, as always, there is plenty to talk about on the Scottish politics front

00:17and part of that leads to today's front page of the Scotsman.

00:22It was an interview with the head of the City of London Corporation

00:26who was talking about the fact that the S&P must tackle the income tax gap.

00:33It's been written about a lot over the past couple of years

00:36that higher earners in Scotland pay slightly more tax in the top couple of brackets.

00:43The boss in question was up here for Scotland's investment summit

00:49that took place over the past couple of days

00:51and he was effectively saying that he knew of cases

00:56and was aware where members of the financial sector

01:00were working in Northern English cities and locations

01:04as opposed to in Scotland and it was specifically down to tax bans

01:08and he said that there were ongoing concerns within the financial sector

01:13about the differential and it was something

01:15that the S&P or the Scottish Government should address.

01:20It's an exclusive story in lines there from our political editor,

01:24Alistair Grant.

01:25You can read that story at scotsman.com.

01:29Also coverage there, otherwise, column from Murdo Fraser

01:34and plenty of roundabout celebrity traitors,

01:38which is airing the first episode this evening

01:41and is going to be a much watch over coming weeks.

01:47David, there's a couple of things to talk to you about as well.

01:51You've covered a couple of stories over the past week

01:54about Lesley Cameron, the housing convener at Edinburgh City Council.

01:58She got herself in some hot water with comments about housing.

02:01Can you talk us through?

02:03Yeah, so Lesley Cameron, as you said,

02:04is the housing convener in Edinburgh.

02:06She's also the deputy lord provost.

02:08So she's got quite a prominent role,

02:10but she's got quite close links to developers.

02:14Part of her brief is kind of economy as well.

02:16She's always been quite concerned about developers coming to the city.

02:21But as part of this, she has called for or suggested

02:24that Edinburgh's affordable housing policy,

02:28which basically requires developers on sizeable developments

02:32to have 35% of those homes to be for affordable housing.

02:37It was upped from 25% last year.

02:41She's asked for that to be looked at and maybe brought back down again

02:44because she feels it's putting off developers coming into the city.

02:48However, Edinburgh, as we all know,

02:49is in the middle of quite a big housing crisis

02:52and it's rents and a lack of affordable housing,

02:55which is really driving that.

02:56And her council leader, her colleague, Jane Meagher,

03:00who kind of fought for this policy to be upped,

03:04she basically undermined her with this.

03:05And when we put the comments to her and asked her to clarify them,

03:10she kind of doubled down on them, Lesley Cameron.

03:13And because of that, Jane Meagher and her Labour colleagues

03:15are very upset with her

03:18and basically called on her to quit from her position.

03:21And if not, she's going to be sacked at the next council meeting.

03:25She had until yesterday to decide over that

03:28and we've been told that she's refused to do that.

03:31So she's basically going to be forced out of this quite prominent role

03:35because of these comments she's made

03:36and the fact she's doubled down on them.

03:39She also upset colleagues last month

03:40by kind of defying the party whip at City Chambers

03:43over Cammy Day, who was in the headlines

03:46over some allegations he was facing.

03:49He's been cleared by police and let back into the Labour group

03:52and no wrongdoing was found by either Labour or the police.

03:57And they were going to vote to put him back

03:59on quite an important committee

04:00after he was kind of forced to step down over the allegations.

04:04And she basically left the chamber and refused to vote.

04:07So she was already in the bad books

04:09and now it looks like she's just going to lose her job

04:11at the next council meeting.

04:14And it's all a bit of a mess, to be perfectly honest.

04:15And David, we know that housing is an absolutely critical issue.

04:20Well, it is across the country, but especially in Edinburgh

04:22where there is a shortage we've written about

04:26that frequently we know housing prices as well is an issue.

04:31So to make comments around affordable housing

04:35could be argued was quite politically insensitive

04:39and you can see how it's got her in this particular hot water.

04:42It'll be interesting to see whether things follow exactly

04:46what we expect at that next council meeting.

04:49And so under that, can you preview of sorts,

04:53we're recording this ahead of a debate and a vote

04:57that's taking place this afternoon.

04:59Can you talk us through some of that?

05:01So the Tories want to speak about specifically

05:05immigration-related issues this afternoon,

05:07which we're expecting to be lively.

05:09And there is a vote as well on the watered-down climate change.

05:13Yeah, that's right.

05:14So the opposition parties get some debate time at Holyrood

05:17and not for the first time the Tories have decided

05:20to use that time to talk about immigration,

05:24which is quite ironic because they give the SNP quite a lot of heat

05:27for talking about largely reserved issues at Westminster.

05:31But this is obviously in response to the pressure

05:34they're feeling from reform, particularly over immigration.

05:37And they're basically framing a debate claiming

05:40that asylum seekers are putting pressure on housing in Scotland.

05:45And that will be responded to by the Housing Secretary,

05:48Mary McCallum, this afternoon.

05:49She'll be leading that debate for the government.

05:53But obviously the Tories are very, very much trying to chase reform,

05:56but it doesn't seem to be working the strategy by basically saying

06:00that reform are right in all these big issues,

06:02but having kind of a watered-down version of Nigel Farage's party.

06:07But that is the strategy they're choosing.

06:09And yeah, as you said, it's bound to be quite lively.

06:11I think the opposition parties will make it quite fiery,

06:15the debate, the Greens and the SNP and probably even Labour

06:20will wade into basically the Tories trying to chase reform

06:24down this rabbit hole over immigration.

06:27Obviously, it's an important issue for Scots.

06:29Immigration has been all over the media,

06:32which has put it in front of people's minds.

06:34But the Conservatives is really not letting up

06:36and not basically bringing it back to that kind of centralist place

06:40where they got a lot of success in the past.

06:43And as you mentioned, the climate targets have been a bit of a mess

06:46for the Scottish government.

06:47They've had to water down their 2030 legal target.

06:51They've had to take it out of law, which is quite an unprecedented step.

06:55And they're moving to quite complicated carbon budgets,

06:59which is the UK kind of system.

07:01That will be voted on and debated this evening,

07:05early sort of early evening today.

07:07There'll be quite a lot of criticism, I imagine,

07:09thrown at the Scottish government for kind of sitting on their hands

07:12and having to water down these, while at the same time sort of reneging

07:16on a lot of the action that will get them to their net zero target of 2045,

07:21which remains intact.

07:23So we'll find out what happens with that later.

07:26And it will kind of kickstart a process for the Scottish government

07:29to finally bring forward their delayed climate change plan,

07:33which we're still working off quite an old document.

07:36And a lot of those actions have changed or been watered down,

07:40as we've talked about.

07:41So it's going to be a very tricky task for the Scottish government

07:45to make the numbers add up so we can actually get to net zero

07:48by the middle of the century.

07:51You can read David's stories about the fate of Lesley Cameron,

07:56the Edinburgh City Council housing convener at scotsman.com.

07:59If you ever can't find any of our political coverage,

08:02just head to the politics tab in the navigation bar,

08:05and there will be more reporting to come around those watered down

08:09climate proposals and just the stance on it later today

08:14as we head into this evening.

08:16David, thank you very much for joining us

08:18and thanks to everyone else for tuning in.

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