As consumers and businesses reel from the latest energy price rises where are not only the Tories but also the Labour opposition on tackling the root causes of the crisis? Has Labour embraced unionism as its core belief?
Show Notes
As consumers and businesses real from the latest energy price rises where are not only the Tories but also the Labour opposition on tackling the root causes of the crisis?
Liz Truss, apparently waiting for the full briefing available only to a "functioning government", has pledged to tear up any semblance of a green energy policy to expand North Sea oil and gas exploration and restart fracking.
Meanwhile Sir Keir Starmer, despite the growing popularity of renationalising public utilities, has abandoned his commitment to public ownership.
Labour, before Starmer's team rolled back on it and after being blasted by Welsh Labour, which is currently in coalition with Plaid Cymru, had signaled a potential change to Labour's rule book barring any deals with pro-independence parties such as the SNP. Was this a move which would, given Labour's willingness to do such deals with the Tories in Scottish local government, be an electoral disaster in Scotland at the next General Election?
Meanwhile Stephen Noon, chief strategist of the 2014 Yes campaign, urged Nicola Sturgeon to halt plans to use that election as a proxy independence referendum and enter a conversation to build a better Scotland within the UK. We ask just how practical this is given the embedded unionism of both major parties and the lack of any meaningful progress on enhanced devolution.
Emily Maitlis was excoriating in her condemnation of direct Conservative Party interference in BBC reporting in her MacTaggart lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival. We reflect on this, with specific insights from Lesley on her time with the BBC, and Pat looks back at Maitlis's involvement in the demonisation of Jeremy Corbyn.
Finally, delegates head to the SNP annual conference in Aberdeen this October and hopefully they will have a chance to vote on a transformational motion to raise Scotland's school starting age to six. As Lesley said in her recent Herald article," ..our children require a collective act of faith in their own innate ability to learn without judgement, uniforms, desks, formality, and tests when they're just four or five. Are SNP delegates ready to deliver?"
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What is The Lesley Riddoch Podcast?
Scottish politics dissected from a left, pro-independence stance. Each week, award-winning broadcaster and journalist, Lesley Riddoch chews over the week’s news with co-host Fraser Thompson. If you like intelligent, quirky chat about Scottish society and culture, and Scottish, UK and international politics analysed from a Scottish perspective; this podcast is for you.