Political Correspondent Rachel Amery and Deputy Political Editor David Bol discuss the SNP conference and what was said in First Minister John Swinney's speech. #politics #SNP #SNPconference #2026Holyroodelection #RachelAmery #DavidBol #JohnSwinney
00:00Hello, I'm Rachel Leibnay, the Scotsman's political correspondent, and I'm joined with David Ball, the Scotsman's Deputy Political Editor.
00:05We have just come out of John Sweeney's speech at the SNP conference. You can probably see party members still leaving the hall behind us here.
00:11Lots of cheers, lots of standing ovation. It seems to have gone down well in the room, but is what he said enough for the SNP to win that fifth term in government that they are looking for at the next election?
00:22David, what did you make of that speech?
00:24Yeah, I think, like you said, it went down very well in the room. A lot of the cheers, I thought, were reserved for sort of some rhetoric on independence.
00:31But there was a big NHS pledge ahead of the election, which is the SNP are pledging to open these kind of walk-in centres for GP appointments, clinics that you don't need to book an appointment,
00:43and they'll be open seven days a week from 12pm till 8pm. And it's in response to pressure from Labour, essentially, to end the 8am rush for GP appointments.
00:53It's a huge pledge by John Sweeney ahead of the election, putting NHS really in the forefront of the campaign.
01:00Still lots of questions we need to get answers to about how that will work, how many extra doctors and whether the BMA contracts with the doctors kind of fit into this.
01:09But yeah, really setting out who's still ahead of that election.
01:12Yes, it's really interesting to see how that pledge goes down, like you said, with GPs themselves. In the room, there's certainly some gasps.
01:19People were clearly surprised by this. But it's going to cost a lot of money. We'll have to find a lot of professionals to come and staff these centres as well.
01:28A lot of unanswered questions as well. But we're hoping to speak to some government officials, hopefully in the next few minutes after this video, to try and get those answers there.
01:37Now, a lot of the speech, unsurprisingly, focused on independence, focusing on attacking the Westminster system and some of the policies have been introduced by the Labour government in Westminster.
01:47A lot against Keir Starmer as well. And I think that's kind of trying to pose John Sweeney as the alternative leader to Keir Starmer. Is that not probably what they're doing?
01:54Yeah, I think they're trying to paint Keir Starmer as a villain, essentially, ahead of this election. That argument is really good for the SNP that you change the government at Westminster, the Tories are out, Labour's in.
02:04And Labour very much said, well, it'll be different now. It won't be the unpopular UK government we had.
02:10But that's not been the case. And it's a gift for the SNP that Labour is so unpopular.
02:15And I think, yes, like you said, there's a lot of talk about Keir Starmer and Nigel Farage and basically showing the SNP as the alternative to voters for that come the election in May.
02:25Now, this is the end of three days in Aberdeen. Lots of speeches, lots of fringe events, lots of discussion.
02:31What have you made of the three days? It seems to me to be a bit more optimistic and a bit more hopeful than I was expecting it to be.
02:36Yeah, I mean, the last year especially, there was a lot of doom and gloom. The SNP was in a really bad place.
02:41Even though they've dropped in the polls, they are kind of, as we expect, on course to win or be the biggest party anyway next year at the election.
02:49I do feel like speaking a lot about independence has really helped lift the mood with the activists and the members.
02:56It's given them something positive to focus on after quite a difficult time for the party.
03:01And it's quite a good launchpad going into that election to have a bit of positivity about them.
03:06Even though that NHS policy, other than there's a good social care one maybe about visas, which also, not sure how the logistics of that work either.
03:14But that sounded quite a positive thing. But other than that, there weren't any other big policies.
03:18And obviously, funding or lack of is paying a big part.
03:22The SNP government still needs to find out how much they're going to get for the next financial year before they can set their budget.
03:28So I do think it's a good starting point for them to kind of spring into that election with a bit of hope and optimism.
03:34Yeah, I think it makes sense to speak so much about independence.
03:37It's the party faithful. This is why everyone is here.
03:40So it's a safe topic for them to go with.
03:42But also as well, we know support for independence is around 50%.
03:45We know that dissatisfaction with the Labour government and Keir Starmer in Scotland is dropping quite dramatically.
03:51But support from the SNP at the moment in the polls is around 35%.
03:55That is enough of them for them to win the election at this point in time.
03:58That's a huge gap between people who are pro-independence, disillusioned with Westminster,
04:03and perhaps at this point in time, not backing the SNP.
04:06So we're clearly trying to get that group of people there.
04:09But we've had lots of analysis throughout the past few days.
04:12You can read all of our coverage on the Scotsman's Politics homepage.
04:16We've also got the steamy newsletter which goes out every single morning.
04:19That's got lots of detail on exactly what our coverage has been.
04:22So have a look at our website, pick up a copy of the paper,
04:25and you can see all of our coverage in the SNP.
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