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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.
Fraser (00:00)
Well, hi folks, and welcome to this week's Leslie Riddick podcast. We're recording on a Tuesday. The new microphone has arrived. So ⁓ Leslie can actually hear what's going on. I can hear myself, which is very exciting. we didn't get any emails from the listeners saying we were quite happy when we couldn't hear him. ⁓ 'cause I think all of the post production efforts made it sound like it was actually naughty bad, but ⁓ very pleased to have the shiny new microphone.
Les (00:25)
It's basically, I was going to say it's Pat's shonky old mic, which suggests that Pat has shonked it, you know, but it is a kind of, it's an old girl, the mic, that has now gone.
Fraser (00:32)
⁓
It was, yes, and it it's now gone. And ⁓ yes, happy days. I feel like sort of whispering bob or something. I've got this much better audio quality going into my ears so I can hear what's going on. ⁓ but yes, it's budget eve. We're back to recording on a Tuesday. ⁓ exciting times ahead. Have you held off stockpiling Garkins? waiting for the tariffs to come down and what's in your what's in your grab bag and what have you got in the the provisions covered?
Les (01:04)
Yeah, do you know something, just all of these questions pretty much. I had my moth man, Neil came back this morning to kind of, you know, look around the place and put up moth traps. Actually, there's not been a winged, ⁓ a winged animal in this house since he's been in. So that's kind of like happy days. But that's exactly what he was talking about with what are they up to? You know, what are they up to with this stuff about stockpiling? This kind of got to be some ulterior motive or whatever. And he mentioned the garka. And then actually,
I was listening to Radio 5 Live and I mean, admittedly, you can draw far too much from a couple of people's comments, but there was just fury from people, you know, suggesting that these little micro fixes that Andy Burnham seems to be specializing in, which will be, you know, lowering tariffs on things, including gherkins, the idea that that offsets, you know, petrol at £2, whatever it is, just massive problems.
There's been polling that suggests 60 % of people basically now put energy prices as their number one concern above the NHS, above everything else. And that opens, you know, the usual kind of priorities completely. So I wonder how this will go because, you know, people are sort of saying that the analysts are kind of saying that this micro policy announcements, you know, I'm trying to remember all the wee tiddly things about
How are they again about...
Fraser (02:33)
Well, we're getting marmalade, for example. It's important to new Well, we took the VAT, of course, of five percent of VAT off of the gas and electricity, which you kinda don't notice 'cause only five percent. And then by the time the ⁓
Les (02:35)
No, but there's been previous ones about sort of, we annoying things.
No, that's more tiddly. See, there they are. If they don't apply to you, you still go, really? But anyway, but sure. So if you kind of go to the 5 % thing, ⁓ I mean, there's at the moment, is it the SNP, I think are calling for just to take VAT off petrol, because I think that would, that's 20%. And then actually the guys who were on the five live thing, I mean, you can't say sometimes these, you know, that phone and they're very often right on the money. The guy was saying that and was not corrected, but
you know, who knows that I mean, about 50 % of the price of petrol is is tax going to the government. actually, yeah. Right. So, you know, the so basically the UK, the UK government has been laughing in many respects with the hikes in price, because then they get more in tax and the AT and then are sort of saying and you can have what
Fraser (03:28)
Definitely hundred percent of not hundred but but you th i the in fact I've seen some cute pictures of
Les (03:46)
you know, 5 % off and little tiddly bits. that, I mean, it totally depends on whether or not people are looking, you know, just any port in a storm, as my mother would have said, any wee tiddly thing that helps, yeah, fine. Or just standing back in a sort of rather macro way and saying, this gets us nowhere. And that's all waiting for, you know, for tomorrow.
Fraser (04:10)
There's two things, supposed the budget, we don't really know what's going on. So ⁓ in past years there was a whole load of trailing of the budget, and maybe we're gonna do this, maybe we're gonna do that, and ⁓ let's just kind of ⁓ flying kites, as they say, to see how bad the reaction was, ⁓ which meant a lot of the things had been trailed or a lot of the negative sentiment had been baked in for things that they ultimately then decided not to do. So Rachel Reeves was much more kind of free and loose with
Testing things out in the media, allegedly. and whereas this budget has as far less of that. But I mean, I was looking at the ⁓ tariff reductions, this is going to potentially save 21 quid a year for people. And you think, is it actually even worth doing at that point? If you're ⁓ obviously the reason why tariffs exist in the first place. ⁓ God, I'm sure Liz Trust was another one with the the
Great jam exports. That was another one of her mad things. So now we're going to be importing cheaper marmalade and citrus based ⁓ pastes and ⁓ preserves. Is that gonna make a a huge difference to you? You will not notice that. And those types of ⁓ minor reductions in costs ⁓ are just swallowed up by the supermarket. They're not gonna
Les (05:19)
No.
to pretty marginal things, let them eat marmalade basically. here the Food and Drink Federation, of course, is not happy with that because even though it is a tiddly thing, they don't want anything that basically impacts on British products and everything. So I can't see that one working very well. They're also talking about the field duty will be frozen in the budget, but as per previous conversation, that's kind of, ⁓ you know.
Fraser (05:51)
So that that means that the fuel duty escalator, whereas the fuel duty you can go up and up and up every year, ⁓ is not going to happen. It's just kinda left at its current crippling rate rather than going a wee bit higher.
Les (06:03)
Yeah, so then there's the national minimum wage and the suggestion that, which was a big talking point this morning on that programme, that basically they're going to not try to bring younger folk up to parity with older folk, which was a previous attempt to sort of equalise things. So the younger rate was getting raised proportionally more than the adult one. But now it looks like they will both be added, you know, raised at the same rate, which will essentially keep the young youngins a bit lower.
And by gum, if you start to listen to small businesses, they're all going, we used to have apprenticeship rates so we could pay 14 year olds next to nothing. I was listening to it with my jaw a bit on the ground thinking, God Almighty, this is like Dickens, it's like sort of child labor. I know people will say, come on, they used to do, who didn't have a paper round at the age of 14 back in the day? But I that will probably be kind of, well, will it be controversial or not?
the small businesses are saying that actually they're all going to the wall for all sorts of reasons. Again, a lot of it energy prices and so on. So, there's one that will pop up and probably not get much in the way of plaudits either.
Fraser (07:15)
Well I a lot of them were saying that you know eighteen to twenty one year olds were actually not much use and ⁓ the the previous ⁓ reduced rate, so you weren't paying just as much in the the the minimum wage for younger workers meant that you could take those people on without having to kind of stress so much about requiring to get a hundred percent output out of them. I suppose if you're eighteen to twenty one year old and you're working your socks off.
and you're doing exactly the same job as everybody else, ⁓ you'd be pretty miffed at that. In fact, I remember when I was 16, I worked in a historic house as a tour guide. And quite frankly, I was better than some of my colleagues, and not better than all of them, but I was pretty damn good. ⁓ and there were some people who absolutely didn't give a whee, ⁓ who were getting paid, you know, significantly more than me, ⁓ just because of the benefit of the fact that they were over 21. So yeah, it's ⁓ kind of swings and roundabouts. You can understand that the
Les (07:53)
Fraser, don't be so modest, ma'ha.
Fraser (08:11)
the bigger level. ⁓ youth unemployment has obviously been a a concern for for Burnham. ⁓ and we talked about the stats that he'd put out ⁓ last week. Interesting, I noticed on Twitter, I think it was Chris ⁓ Musson was saying that ⁓ when he did that speech in Motherwall where we all looked as if he was let look at me how I can speak for half an hour without referring to my notes, actually had a big auto cue at the back. ⁓ so it was an
bit of a a a a ploy to make him look slick an Fabby Dobby. ⁓ but if you had after Q still managed to call the first minister the first secretary. So I think great, well done. And ⁓ I'm pretty convinced that I've not seen it published yet, but I'm fairly convinced he gave the ⁓ not an education, employment or training stats for Wales, not for Scotland, which his Scottish stats are significantly better.
Les (08:49)
gonna hoot hoot.
that is poor, except that I don't know, does anybody believe there isn't an autocue somewhere? know, but anyway, the other thing that's, I mean, something that's been said here, but Scottish Roundtree Foundation is that, and this is a really sobering one, if energy prices stay in line with, you know, the Bank of Scotland, England's adverse scenario, and income, after you take housing costs out of it, income will be about £800 a year lower.
by 2029. So when you look at that 21 quid a year off your weekly shop, I mean, that's the thing. It would have to be said that although the budget is like, you know, ⁓ it's a big one, the old box and the old stunning front of number 11 and everything, there's an attempt to say that more is coming later with the kind of autumn statement, which is going to come later. Apparently,
you know, people are suggesting it's now June, December. And that's also the time when Burnham's 10 year plan, you know, it's cruel to say twice as long as Stalin, but you because he did have a series of five years. So I guess that adds up to the same thing. But anyway, the 10 year plan. So there's a lot of kind of like, you know, the big thinking about rewiring the state white paper that's also being drawn up at the moment. So it feels a little bit like that. ⁓ some of that is waiting.
for the review that Alan Milburn's been doing about NAITS, as you just mentioned there, which again, is supposed to report in mid-November. So there's actually gonna be a lot of stuff coming towards the tail end of the year, although there's also been the suggestion doing the rounds, which everybody that's got anything to say about it is saying, who the heck is saying this about having a snap election in December? mean, no. The risk, okay, let's just say it. Go on, save Fraser, no.
Fraser (10:54)
No. Definitely not.
No, absolutely not. As I said last year or last week it is a not a fun activity to do an election in December. I can give personal account of that. And also what are you gonna
Les (11:00)
Right.
But I mean, it's just like, whether it's fun or not for you, it just isn't going to fricking happen. mean, apart from anything else, what one thing that I mean, well, apart from anything else, John Curtis has said, but he's noticing, for example, although everyone will have seen Andy Burnham's writings are really high and they're higher in Scotland than John Swinney. that's Andy Burnham. It's not his party. it.
Fraser (11:30)
Yeah, they lose twenty one seats in Scotland or something. So, you know, who's voting for that?
Les (11:34)
Yes. So, I mean, of course, they don't give a toss about Scotland. So going or not going won't probably be based predicated on that. But they did have this walloping great, you know, thin ⁓ victory with with Keir Starmer. So they're at the highest level they could possibly ever be. And however, you'd need to be stratospherically popular to be certain that if you're having an election, you aren't going to do what
was it Theresa May did when she stood and lost half her folk because the party is not that popular added to which I was watching Scotland Tonight and Michael Matheson was on, former minister now pundit it would seem. And he was saying, yeah, just look at what's coming. There's, you know, there's going to be a big raise in energy prices with the price cap. There's going to be inflation going up. There's going to be all sorts of bad economic news in the next couple of months. And then you have an election in winter.
that you don't need to have. No. I we'll take the flack if he does do it.
Fraser (12:37)
If it happens and it stands all of a sudden the podium comes out with no government ⁓ seal on it and you think, hang on, I'm sure I authoritively said that there would be absolutely no chance of a snap general election and here we go. We're just about to start one. ⁓
Les (12:45)
You
There's also all this lark about about Brexit and kind of, you know, he started flying more of these kites, which this is an interesting one, because to the Scottish listener, it's got a different. There's a whole different thing going on when you hear that. I mean, in that the Scots were obviously more pro EU and but that, you know, half of us were independents. It looks like I mean, Jonathan Shaffey wrote a very good column in the National.
saying really this is now, Burnham is wandering straight onto the SNP's turf because it looks like you might have an easier go of getting back into the EU via Britain via Burnham. ⁓ On the other hand, can you rely on the idea that England has suddenly stopped being a conservative country that easily opts for scapegoating foreign neighbours? know, I mean, it's not like just a couple of polls.
suggest that the country has gone cold turkey from a very, very fiercely leave kind of position. ⁓ So there's all of that going on. And of course, Europe, we were talking beforehand at just what to discuss. My God, it's like everywhere is going, well, it's going bonkers in many respects. France could have a far right prime minister, Germany, Merck's is kind of.
support has collapsed, that's a sort of centre right. There's some good news, if you like, from a left perspective across the world in Brazil and Serbia. Blimey heck, you know, there's a fabulous result there from the students list grouping. But I mean, over the piece, the EU is kind of, you know, having its blooming challenges, to put it mildly. ⁓ And that, you know, so that's coming at a time when I mean, there's already labour hacks.
and backbenchers, a lot of them anonymously, ⁓ really lobbying the journalists and saying to them that this is kind of absolutely appalling and it's still a toxic kind of subject. And of course, Nigel Farage leapt on, and I didn't even bother to hear it I didn't see much coverage of it either, ⁓ to do a sort of a thumping thing a couple of days ago. So who knows if they'll even be hanging in for that.
Fraser (15:16)
But there's a still an a sort of accumulation of the Prime Minister meant to say dot dot dot. And when he said X, Y, and Z in that interview, what he actually meant was something completely different, or, you know, number ten spokesperson has ⁓ wrote back from Andy Burnham's recent statement on yada yada yadda. I wouldn't like to be in the comms team at number ten particularly. ⁓ but it doesn't really speak of a kind of cohesive ⁓ plan a little too much.
Kite flying again. ⁓ we're open to EU freedom of movement, but in my lifetime, not necessarily in this parliament. All these lots and lots of rhetoric about this parliament is not going to go to 2029. I certainly don't think it's gonna be up for grabs ⁓ in a few months in 2026, but it's certainly not going to run the the full course. ⁓ so there were potentially a lot of Labour MPs going to be out of a job without having actually served a full five year parliament.
And what are we going to say that we're not requiring our a referendum in order to re-enter the EU or is it just gonna re-enter the EU, you know, bit by bit, sort of stealthily in hope that nobody notices or accept freedom of movement and ⁓ oversight of ⁓ any sort of customs arrangements by the the Court of Justice of the EU ⁓ and just do that as a kind of parliamentary exercise, but not go for full EU membership.
Les (16:39)
Well, they suggested it would be in the next manifesto. the freedom of movement idea, although as you say, that was rapidly back stepped from by people who know what they're talking about. But still, suggestion was that would be in a manifesto so that that gets them around having to have a referendum and that gets them around having any parallels with the Scott Scotland, except.
that if you can undo a constitutional arrangement with a simple majority in a general election, that actually is a lot easier. Thanks, mate. But still, you'd have to be, you certainly need a degree of sort of dynamism about that, which I don't know, sometimes you feel is not currently there in the Scotland.
Fraser (17:13)
Yeah. Well that's a sovereign parliament, yes, that's a different cumlackey altogether.
No. And ⁓ equally there were some reasonably compelling arguments saying, well, if you wanted to have a a second referendum on anything, ⁓ would potentially be the one that has a sixty percent support for going in the opposite direction of what the previous vote was, not the one that's constantly tottering around fifty percent. so the the support for rejoining the EU is much greater than the support for Scotland to become an independent country. And ⁓ equally no much campaigning going on on the EU front.
⁓ not much campaigning going on on the independence front either.
Les (18:03)
The EU one, although I'm sure our listeners are more interested in the independence one, but I wonder how many people, especially in the English electorate, which was much more hostile to Europe, I'm still struck by a conversation I had with somebody last week who just said, I just want things to go back to normal. And I don't know if it's that people are going, we must get back into the EU. Absolutely, definitely. We've had
economic carnage since then and we need workers and buy gum, did we ever shoot ourselves in the foot and so on. I mean, there'll be some people that will feel that down the road. But I wonder if it's more just a sort of general, look, okay, it's all been a nightmare the last 10 years. I don't know what went wrong, but can we just go back to normal? Can we just sort of stop all this that we're special and we're gonna stick out like a sore thumb and sort of splendid isolation and all that shit. And also when you see
Fraser (18:46)
Yeah.
Les (18:56)
the world polarizing and then, you know, Britain is currently sitting, okay, it's a big economy, but you can see there are some blooming dinosaurs thumping around out there and it very possibly feels just in a generalized way that if we could just turn the clock back, essentially, I we thought things were pretty bad then, jeez, you know, I don't know if it's more thought through than that for a lot of people, but then that's enough, isn't it?
Fraser (19:24)
I'd agree. I think it's also it's returning to something you were previously in. Scottish independence is creating a new state. ⁓ EU membership was also a bit kind of add-on. You know, you had if you're a thumping British nationalist, it was an add-on that you didn't like, but it still got you a fast track of passport control when you're coming out for your holidays into Spain. ⁓ it perhaps did not really impact your life in any tangible way that you could understand day to day.
Whereas Scotland becoming an independent country will ⁓ potentially have quite a significant amount of upheaval ⁓ in the the creation of the state, you'll get at a position that you will ultimately be better in potentially, and we would certainly argue that you would be. but the getting there is a harder slog than just somebody signing a bit of paper in Brussels and saying, Thanks very much, we're we're happy for you to now set rules on how much sewage can be dumped on beaches and we'll
Just leave you to the big complicated stuff. Cheers very much.
Les (20:24)
Yeah, which a lot of which still revolves around energy, you know, because I mean, that is the big one. Still thinking about that weird conversation with Jack Straw when he sort of said, but how would Scotland survive if it wasn't subsidised by England? If you missed last week's one, I just bumped into Jack Straw outside my house, which is, which was a weird one, because he looks exactly like Jack Straw still though he must have been a few years on. And you think, geez, you know, come on. I mean, really? With the
Fraser (20:42)
Mm-hmm.
Les (20:54)
the kind of energy wealth we've got. mean, and this business of what's been happening with Jackdaw, you know, when there's people, the announcement of this national, the Sovereign Wealth Fund that's being set up by Labour to put some of the money, the North Sea Energy Wealth Fund, and for sure, you know, there's been quite a bit of flummoxing about that and people saying, geez, know, 40 years ago, we could have had that and we could be with the one trillion or whatever it is that Norway's got at the moment.
I wonder how that's been seen differently across the place because for sure it's better to do it now than not do it. That's Scotland's energy. A very large part of that money is coming from our energy assets. And there's not really been much said about that. I find that really baffling. Scotland's oil was a pretty reasonable slogan back in the day before we realized what we were doing to the planet. ⁓
You know, what about it's it's still Scotland's North Sea, it's still our wind resource. And we're not making the point that that is why Norway. If Norway was still part of Sweden or Denmark, it would be seeing Tuppenshaveney back out of any fund as well. You know, but it's because it's an independent country that it's managed to do and to do sensible things, you know, like invest it for the future, which again,
You couldn't have guaranteed that a mothership would have done. It would have just burned, baby burned, albeit the Scandies are not as stupid and short-termist rather as Margaret Thatcher. But still, we're on this question of the North Sea Energy Wealth Fund. And when people were mentioning, I think somebody was pushed on that as to kind of quite where we would have been. There would have been a trillion quid in that if we'd been independent at the time and that had been Scotland's resource.
That's how much we would have clocked up. Now I don't know if Folk and Scotland are going right because I don't think it's really been pushed.
Fraser (22:58)
No, and also the the the kind of most interesting point, of course, this was the first time that Treasury officials has actually done any modelling on it. So they're they're reckoning with something in the region of two hundred billion in in receipts, which you can just ⁓ see, you know, as fancy tunnels underneath London for the most part, and redevelopment of Canary Wharf, ⁓ and a thriving ⁓ financial system in London.
⁓ where does the rest of it go? I don't see many tunnels through mountains in Scotland as you would get in Norway. ⁓ we're still arguing about a a shelter in the rest and be thankful. ⁓ which is doing its rounds again ⁓ this week is exactly how this is gonna be ⁓ formed and lots of
Les (23:37)
Yeah.
Although I'll still tediously point out that many of those islands and tunnels on Norway are funded by hydro, the receipts of hydro power. you know, but anyway, that's another thing we could have, let's not go there again. Anyway.
Fraser (23:56)
Yeah, but you know, in terms of snazzy infrastructure, there's nay very much. ⁓ and ⁓ quite interesting that they actually went to the effort of, you know, getting the fact packet out in the ⁓ pen and paper and seeing what the what this was gonna be. but they're two hundred billion, which they reckon would be another a a trillion now, ⁓ sitting there. we do w rather wonder at how Norway's got two point four trillion.
⁓ given it's the same North Sea and in actual fact we split it equally rather than using the rules of the sea. So Norway got a bit more of the the North Sea than they otherwise might have done 'cause it was of course empty of anything interesting until all of a sudden there was a a huge oil find. So yeah, not exactly very well treated and ⁓ pretty muted response I suppose from from the kind of Scottish political firmament and ⁓ commentary.
Les (24:46)
Well, for sure. Apart from I wrote a column about it and did point just this out, know, what OK, the the SMP is conflicted about North Sea drilling, obviously, but there's just it just there's a there's an opportunity flying right past you that massive figure that we didn't get. And we're doing it again. The thing the thing that I was really drumming on about and it'll surprise nobody. ⁓
Fraser (24:49)
Yeah.
Les (25:12)
Because, the consensus seems to have got our jacked or, know, it's not such a big field as Rosebank and the gas at least will come into pipelines are already there. So it literally comes into into here. And you were hearing from me at a final bullet that the energy minister that look, we would have to be taking this is sort of gas would be coming in fracked from the United States. There's crazy for you. But just wait a minute. There is crazy for you. You know, that.
That and I know you can't sort of just click your fingers and move, but that's like an addict. That's the way that's the way people bend themselves out of shape when they stop being able to, you know, they've got to have the gas. They've got to have the stuff. And it's now beyond madness. mean, we are at 85 % use of gas for domestic heating. And I think I went through it last week. It's thinking unreal how much our neighbors don't use gas.
And don't you mean Norway even has building regulations that ban installing heating systems based on gas. And, know, it's it's that's that's the norm. And at some point. OK, so here we are now in this really bad situation. But nobody is questioning when people say, we have to have gas because, you know, it'll have to come from these incredibly awkward places. And look, Trump's even doing deals with Putin to get gas from him.
Gas is king and gas is bigger than frickin Donald Trump and put in put together. And the clever folk got out of it because do you really want to have your economy bent out of shape as we are now are because we never bothered to get local heat networks going that are based on something else. And I just, mean, I just don't understand why this isn't something that even runs past. I mean, there's some notable exceptions and fair enough.
But most journalists and broadcasters and commentators, when this gets put in front of them, they're just kind of cowed probably because I'll put my hands up. I've still got freaking gas heating, liquid, whatever it is, gas sitting in the middle of nowhere. I put my money into solar panels and I haven't really got enough to whack out for a huge change in heating system. And that's where you need a government to step in. But nobody's discussing that. We're just going gas, gas, gas, you know.
And we're weird. It really is worth noting how out of step we are with Northern Europe. And of course, we just have had all these latest reports. You begin to get the stage, it's the same with Israel, come to that in a minute, that UN reports, you know, this is the biggest brains in the blooming planet who are coming up with stuff. And it feels a bit like, yeah, brain shmains, you know. I mean, okay, they're now saying that overshooting the Paris goal that was 1.5 % is unavoidable. And yeah, okay.
That means glaciers will lose a quarter of their mass by the end of the century and all these scary things. But we still are sitting in this gas-powered comfort zone and nothing, nothing, no level of threat. We have not diminished the amount of gas heating over the last decade, as far as I can see. So what the heck would actually make that change? Because nobody's even talking about it.
Fraser (28:32)
But we are also in the middle of an energy crisis. And ⁓ is it not the case? I'm sure you would say that ⁓ a lot of these things were prompted by the the oil crisis in the ⁓ seventies, ⁓ that spurned the Scandis into kind of like getting off of that for for energy security in the first place. But we don't seem to be seeing the same level of activity.
Les (28:49)
Well, of, but the point was the Scandies already had a different template, which was, boringly, hydro. So, you know, because of land ownership in Scotland, hydro was 50 to 60 years behind ⁓ Norway. It took the Second World War and the considerable Tom Johnson, the Labour ⁓ Scottish secretary, who basically brought landowners together in that wartime situation, put incredible moral pressure on them.
to be able to use land and they were paid for hydro. So that's the lag it took us. And the hydro, I it was a ⁓ publicly owned service, but it then, thanks Maggie, got flogged off to, I could have got this genealogy of ownership wrong, but I think it went to SSE who then sold it to a foreign company. And it's now our hydro resources are owned by Drax.
So, you know, the Norwegians and everybody else just firmly held on to what energy started in public hands and it stayed there. And in the case of Norway, public municipal hands. know, Maggie couldn't have done her thing because she would have had to have forced the release of assets from 400 municipalities who would have said no. So there's all sorts of, you know, there's path dependency in the parlous state we find ourselves at the moment.
But it doesn't help to not put focus on where the problem is. And the other thing is for Scotland, particularly with so many tenements, which are so much easier to put district heating into. OK, I'm going back on this one again. But that's the only way we know Scotland would need to start talking about this, because it would make a huge dent in energy prices to make that change. And we could make it.
Fraser (30:47)
We should. So more on that in the future. ⁓ back to international matters. The ⁓ Israeli election is ⁓ certainly heating up. They're ⁓ looking to be the the highest turnout in decades with various people, I think it was seventy thousand odd electors, ⁓ flying back into Israel in order to to vote, ⁓ and a a referendum potentially on Netanyahu.
Les (31:14)
Yes, it seems to be. I mean, when you start to watch, I've got to say, I watched Channel 4 News last night and was in tears at the end of it again because it did a long, they're doing long in-depth reports using, because they're banned from going into Gaza using local camera people and filmmakers. And this one was following the civil defense guys who have the horrible task of going around with a shonky old bulldozer, trying to work amongst the ruins of, of
buildings to try and find the remains of people who are trapped under there. And the relatives are standing around and they've been waiting two years knowing that the bodies are just right down there. And this one tractor digger thing has got to get permission from the Israelis for a specified period of time, which is no more than eight hours work. And they can be right in middle of everything. They could have found a body, but as soon as the eight hours are up, that's it. They have to stop.
They hardly get paid, they're underfed, they're out in the sun the whole day. It's a traumatizing thing to do. It's hopeless. All they end up doing is carrying out small little packets of bones, which is all that's left from people and it's their clothes that identify them, which the relatives then carry in great ceremony and respect to a grave and they're all buried together. Now you then having to watch Israel and that election.
and know that it makes no difference at all who gets elected to more. Well, it'll take a while because they've got a PR system. all, know, both Netanyahu and the guy who's kind of threat challenging him, Gaddaa Eisencot, this is described as the centrist Yashar party. I mean, this really beggars the word centrist, really, because.
Fraser (32:50)
Could be months, yeah.
Les (33:09)
I mean, OK, his main thing is he wants an investigation into what happened in October the 7th. ⁓ And that's the one that Netanyahu has been denying. whoever wins, there's no two state solution. There's no let up on settlers. There's no hope for Gaza until all the weapons that are being sent in there, the trade stops. I mean, this needs ⁓ a total boycott of South African apartheid proportions.
And even then, this can keep going for a very long time. So I don't know, you're kind of watching this happen and think, I don't know, does it really matter which one of them wins? Because from the point of view of any sort of fairness from Gaza, when you listen to some of the settlers, you watch what the settlers are doing, persecuting people. And there's a UN reporter. Again, here we go to another UN report.
which has just got the most horrible stuff, rape, all sorts of stuff going on from the IDF towards anybody who is lifted. It's just, it feels very hopeless to be really honest.
Fraser (34:23)
It does. And ⁓ it's very difficult to to even get into the the commentary on because there is very little actual movement. ⁓ as you say, he's still the idea of a two state solution is pretty much all but gone. I think the the the opposition ⁓ guy is looking for a kind of state minus situation. ⁓ but again wants to make sure that there's ⁓ no possibility of Hamas and threatening further military action.
And ⁓ you know, there's not a huge amount to to differate to between the the two of them.
Les (34:56)
Well, I was watching a video because there's a lot of people coming back to this, you know, demand to have an investigation about October the 7th. And again, coming back to that really impactful film, NASA, that I was describing last week, which shows how the phone hardware that was installed by the Israelis in Gaza has then been used to listen to people and to then decide what's the optimum time.
for dropping a bomb on a block of flats in the hope of pursuing one supposed Hamas operative with maybe up to 100 or 200 NASA, which is the word for the collateral damage normal humans, bairns, wives, everybody else. That situation does make you think if there was that level of intelligence gathering going on, how on earth
could you not notice the movements that were beginning to develop that resulted in October the 7th? Now, I did actually watch a really interesting video. I'll send you the link on it by Norman Finkelstein, who's a political scientist at Princeton. And he basically is very, very kind of critical of Netanyahu, basically. But his line really is he doesn't think there was a deliberate thing going on there. And he makes the point.
The Israelis would be having something like 10,000 intelligence reports a day. And he basically says they got intelligence from Egypt, first of all, about this possibility. they were, he says, the Israelis are so racist that they basically dismissed them as if that information came from scum. And then the Emiratis apparently backed it up, ditto. And he said the approach that the Israelis had
was a bit the same as the States basically before 9-11. If we don't know about it, it can't be happening because there was such good, they thought, such complete communications and because they couldn't accept intelligence from essentially Arab sources. I don't know, but clearly it doesn't matter what we think, but the Israeli population, that seems to have been for a lot of people, they've been waiting from October the 8th.
to get rid of Netanyahu because they don't believe him. So all of this will doubtless get more airtime. And yet, you know, here we are now, we get more and more comments by the UN, just basically Israel now, they say, you know, is guilty of trying to, well, of extermination, persecution, torture, rape, and sexual violence in the West Bank.
as well as a continuing genocide in Gaza. Now what? know, I mean, that's why I started Googling what can happen now to help and there's nothing.
Fraser (38:02)
No, sadly, and ⁓ there's gonna be months of wrangling before they finally form a government, ⁓ to even see if there is going to be any kind of moderate shift in policy or in position.
Les (38:17)
Well, the weird thing, the only thing I did notice was ⁓ a kind of very odd suggestion that if if Gaddi Eisencott wins, he won't probably win by enough to be, you know, to be have a majority. And he might end up having to depend on one of the Palestinian parties, which is like, what? I mean, it seems there's 20 percent of the population of Israel are Palestinians.
There's been all sorts of accusations of funny business to make it hard for them to vote, but nonetheless, they're there. ⁓ Except that he has had to come out and say that he wouldn't do a deal with them because the whole population is so far right. Anyway, we'll find out more soon.
Fraser (38:59)
We will indeed, but we won't be watching any of it on the BBC Scotland channel.
Les (39:04)
Yeah, that's the one that got away, isn't it? That just fell between our funny dates of doing stuff.
Fraser (39:07)
Well, it's kind of like the one yeah. Although people have to kind of really work themselves up to to you know, to be upset about it. You know, what we wanted was a Scottish six and then a BBC Scotland, which is what we already had, ⁓ that opted in to taking things from London network rather than having to occasionally carve a space and opt out. and what we got instead was a
Les (39:17)
care.
Fraser (39:36)
separate channel that was on at very peculiar times of the day that had huge periods where it wasn't broadcasting at all, ⁓ and didn't actually ever build an audience. Which then also had a whole load of things which were subsequently rebroadcasting BBC One or BBC Two at some later point where people would who watched television as it was presented to you rather than ⁓ on demand ⁓ would stumble across it on BBC two rather than going to BBC Scott.
Les (39:46)
No, and
There's a whole load of stuff and I mean, we've discussed this before because in my I was still was I still there? I was still there at the beginnings of the Scottish Six and part of the posse that was arguing for and thought it was in the bag because they'd had pilots done. So everybody thought that was actually moving ahead. And then Tony Hall, the then director general, swung in. He's got he had this the news hour is sacred.
And that news hour being the six o'clock news network as in London. And what the Scottish six would have done would be to take us Scotland out of it and produce on television what has already been done on radio for about 50 years, which is a compilation of news. Now people might say, you know, it's hardly sometimes it's not very good. Sometimes it's pretty parochial, but it's up to you to shuffle the pack and decide what story goes where.
Whereas it's always hanging off the end, like, you know, again, James Robertson's excellent poem about the news where you are. That's where we are just at the end, the tail end of everything, doing kind of what looks very often like ⁓ press releases and murders and, you know, hardly very in-depth examination of things. So that's where we are, where we could have been was the Scottish Six. Where we didn't go was that. And instead it looked sassier.
because the money, which is the same as was sprinkled around all these opt-outs you've described, was put into one channel with this massive great anchor around its ankle saying, you cannot come on air before 7pm and you must have a news program at 9. And that was it, dead in the water. And quite a lot of us, I remember writing this just that very day.
was there's no way any news program can compete with the best entertainment offers of everybody else. And if you're a bit of a news junkie, you've watched everything by then. So there is nothing left really as a sort of need to watch in terms of that next thing. It was aimed at the young'uns and there's nothing wrong with that because they're the ones that aren't watching, but they aren't watching. And as the announcement now is suggesting,
and things are going straight onto the iPlayer because people are younger folk are more adept and more used to just finding stuff on demand and aren't watching TV at all. Well, that was a trend back then. And what's happened is you lost the oldies because a lot of it was, you know, a lot of programming was kind of quite interesting if you stuck with it. But it was a bit light, lightweight. And and I actually met up with the.
guy who was in charge at the time, from Northern Ireland actually. And ⁓ it was just an unashamed thing of we have to get young viewers. And I think that's, I must say, I wouldn't like to be in anyone's shoes who's trying to get young viewers to terrestrial TV or even to digital right now. And you worry about what will happen given how few people, I mean, I was speaking to a bunch of lassies from Edinburgh University who are in their women, women politics group.
and asked how many people had read a paper, no hands go up. Online paper, no hands go up. know, one lassie said she looked at the BBC website occasionally for news. So it's a fair fact for sure, but this was not a way to get around it because it didn't, know, the older generations have the habits and still are the ones who are forming opinion about stuff, who review things, who...
either get interested or excited or something about it. And we were just carved out of that in the main. So poor thing had never a chance really from the beginning and was never intended as a sort of go for gold number one option. It was the fallback because nobody because because Tony Hall would not allow the primacy of the 6 p.m. London News to be touched. And that's like a BBC.
know, version, a broadcasting version of parliamentary sovereignty. That is basically BBC London sovereignty.
Fraser (44:24)
Yeah. That's really interesting way of putting it actually because that's it. That's we stamp the the news for the whole of the UK. And that's what we want to do. And you'd get all these, you know, the the the culture secretaries resigned and you think, have they? my God, what's happened? But then of course it's not it's not nothing to do, it's not your culture secretary. you know, stuff like that. ⁓ surely now there is a you go back to the original premise of saying actually we need a Scottish sticks. We're still paying more
⁓ people who pay it, I wouldn't be one of them, ⁓ for licence fee in the Scotland than it's actually spent. We've talked before about how there's a whole huge amount of jiggery poker going off labelling things as Scottish output, which is absolutely not Scottish in any shape or form, and it's barely any ⁓ Scottish staff or or or any Scottish content. is just basically attached to the the Scottish budget. ⁓ and just a kind of
Totally crapening of product. ⁓ Good Morning Scotland, becoming BBC Breakfast or what have you. I happen to quite often switch. I know we're moving from radio from TV to radio, but I kind of flop around with different radio stations depending on what DAB signal I'm getting. ⁓ Times radio were talking to some old tabloid right wing rubbish. Went to BBC Radio 4. That was on
kind of English politics things wasn't interested in, but was still in the very much in the heart of a news hour. Finally gave up and went to BBC Radio Scotland. They were talking about an Afghan hound called Susan who wears women's clothes and as some kind of Instagram sensation. And I'm like, well there we go. One of the, you know, it's two very kind of beasty political subjects on on Times Radio, BBC Radio 4. And then Drive Time was talking about Susan, an Afghan hound that you know is on the front of Cover of Vogue. And I just thought, for God's sake, let's just
Les (46:02)
Hehehehehe
These are two absolute bettanoirs, but to me, just I can hear how thin the coverage is. that yesterday with Storm, whoever it was yesterday, can't, it's hard to keep up. There was kind of the same actuality. There was an interview, I think it could even have been the previous night. It's all been a bit of a blur because it's been grandchildren in the mix here. And wow, that scrambles your brain. Big respect to Pat. Anyway.
So the same thing was used for practically 12 hours. And by the time I heard that again at lunchtime, leading the package that they were doing about that, I just knew where the rest of it was going. And it wasn't new. And you know, this little phrase is used a lot of the time, the very latest news. We would have, you know, back in the day, and but of course, there was thousands of us, you know, that was a very staffed newsroom. And you would have really been as a badge of pride, each each big
set sort of sequence program morning, lunchtime and news drive would have teams that were trying to have fresh different materials. So you never had the same stuff twice. So that's happening a lot now as well as the Afghan pot set, because it's just a sort of that folksy kind of phone in thing that's, you know, it's something people like, but it's now crept all the way into news. So you get ludicrous sort of combinations of things.
And sometimes a whole 20 minutes on something that you're just not interested in. And my plea about this is it's a news program in the morning. You know, you just want to know what's happened in the world. And if you hear 20 minutes coming up with a whole long analysis of something that's not, you know, up your street, ⁓ that's it switched off. So I found I've had that habit because my parents had it. They always listened on the hour to Radio Scotland.
even when sometimes we were in Belfast, which my dad was quite a one for, you know, the old wacky signals and everything. And that's gone. I mean, to have that go, that's, you know, that's 60 years worth of habit sort of going. So, yeah, this is becoming a right old gloomy one. Can I just say, thank God the Scottish Greens didn't cave in and do what the English Greens have and support nuclear energy at their conference. But I mean, it sounds like it was close.
Fraser (48:17)
Yeah.
Les (48:43)
Well, it was a debate at least, which could have made the SNP look like they're the only kids on the block that think that energy that's massively overpriced and will take 10 to 20 years to come in is a good bet when we're awash with our own renewable energy that we should get to grips with.
Fraser (49:05)
Yep. And ⁓ d it was a very kind of off brand thing. I didn't obviously f follow in great detail the the English and Wales Greens ⁓ motion. I think this is ⁓ that they were kind of slightly nuanced, they were going to review things as they came up. ⁓
Les (49:22)
is basically that they're so you know, the net zero thing is so hopeless that sort of any again, any port in a storm, you know, if you could try to contain the dangers of contamination and you know, sounds like all the things that can't be done. So but anyway, that's England's going that way, the Greens here have decided not to do that. And probably to the great relief of the leadership, the discussion about about
Fraser (49:35)
Yeah. Just recognize it as a kinda role for it, yeah.
Les (49:50)
consensual non-monogamy, no, what is it? Let's put it properly, polyamory. Didn't get debated because the conference had to end early. And this wasn't, this looks like it wasn't a total make up because they were up at Eden Court in Inverness because basically Storm Bullo had caused transport problems and the last train leaving Inverness for Glasgow departed at 4.25. So basically,
Fraser (49:52)
⁓ polyamory, recognizing polyamorous relationships.
Les (50:20)
tough. It couldn't have been discussed.
Fraser (50:21)
I thought you were gonna say somebody in the comms team, you know, w whacked the fire escape button 'cause they just didn't wanna have to deal with the the press fallout of you know, look at these peculiar tofu eating types are now wanting ⁓ recognition of marriage between, you know, more than two people.
Les (50:37)
But the point is, you know, if everybody else, when it comes to the jackdaw rose back and everything, there's so many people doing, but we have to replace, you know, the gas that comes from it. You need the Greens to be on message about this. I appreciate I've got a particular point of view about this. Other people might have a different one. But in the interplay of people standing up for different kind of arguments, which are valid and important, we need the Greens to be being heard properly from their point of view.
just to try to kind of have a proper discussion because the Rosebank oil field decision is the big one coming. And it's interesting that an awful lot of observers seem to be saying they think that that labor might actually just turn it down. Funnily enough, ⁓ there's about seven times more CO2 comes out of it than Jackdaw. The oil will definitely be exported overseas anyway, so it won't make any difference to our fuel security.
Fraser (51:23)
Yeah.
Les (51:35)
Never mind. mean, at least all politicians except, you know, crazy people in reform have stopped claiming that anything that comes from the North Sea will reduce prices here. It could produce more tax, which if the government decided to use it that way, could do something about tax costs, as we've said earlier. And I imagine that there's going to be quite a bit from from John Healy in the budget about the Jack Daw approval.
bringing more tax take from the North Sea that he's then using, that he will kind of try to see that as a bit of a kind of result. But actually, on that front, the clever money, which is obviously not me because I can't count, points out that the tax receipts from that, from ⁓ Jackdaw, the gas field, will fall outside the next five-year forecast period. So that essentially, you don't get the goodies into
you're, you know, into the coffers within the period of the OBR's forecasts, which is what will be published tomorrow. Though I think the officials are hoping that knowing that it's coming along sometime soon will let the OBR be a bit cheerier than it might otherwise be. Yeah.
Fraser (52:53)
Well maybe get a paragraph in there somewhere. Yeah. ⁓ and I was being flipping about the the Scottish Green Party, but the the point remains really that the the the the tabloids were were gearing themselves up for a field day ⁓ and were cranking out all of the kind of dismissive terms for the the Green Party of ⁓ membership ⁓ because of that kind of ⁓ distracting type of of motion when there were some very critical things that had to be debated and a useful voice to be put forward.
Les (53:23)
Well, there's the COP 31 climate summit is coming up in Turkey, again, strangely from the interview in Israel, the interview that I was quoting earlier, which was looking very skeptically at Israel's performance, there was a prediction that Turkey will be the next country they're going for because Netanyahu is talking up the threat from Turkey a lot at the moment, as if the world isn't bad enough. anyway, nonetheless, the
COP31, climate summit in Turkey, that's coming up soon. So there's another prediction that the Rosebank decision won't get announced before that because kind of, you okay, everybody seems to be slipping back on their green stuff, but it doesn't probably create a very good look for Britain's soft power on the climate front to be, you know, announcing Rosebank and then trotting off to COP31.
Bearing in mind, I mean, it's not Ed Miliband who's going, obviously, because he's been doofed off to foreign affairs, but he is the man that said that Rosebank would amount to climate vandalism. And nothing's changed about that.
Fraser (54:30)
Indeed, talking of Inverness in the last train home, Inverness was knocked out of the twenty twenty nine City of Culture shortlist.
Les (54:39)
It was, I mean, I should declare an interest because I got a very good friend who was helping to put that bit together. And, you know, pretty gutted and that it just feels like a kind of, well, I mean, Inverness doesn't feel rural to itself. And it is, it was at one point, and if it still is Britain's fastest growing city. But, you know, it looks like it's kind of some, well, basically the shortlist that's been created are all places in England and Wales.
with Wrexham looking like it might be in with a nod. But it does feel kind of really depressing because there's been a special, huge effort put in by Inverness with the hinterland of the Highlands. I hope a lot of that emphasis, and it's got so much going for it. It's got Gaelic, there's such a resurgence in, if you like, homegrown culture in the Highlands with the fashion movement that's been going for about 40 years, teaching kids traditional instruments in the
medium of language of Gaelic. So there's so much that could be brought to that and yeah it's not happening. So that's a terrible shame but I know the folk who've been brought together have now got their own ideas about how they'll just keep driving culture as a future for the Highlands and that's got to happen.
Fraser (55:57)
speaking of culture, ⁓ you highlighted that there's a very interesting ⁓ one day conference in Glasgow looking at the centenary of the Hugh McDermott poem A Drunk Man Looks at a Thistle.
Les (56:08)
Yeah, and this will put the link up to it, but it is a really, really interesting kind of high powered line up on the speakers there. was way back in the day, I think I did a back when I was in Radio Scotland, it was McDermid's 100th anniversary and we did a special for two hours, three hours live. mean, geez, and you never get this these days.
⁓ on McDermott's legacy and I was very daunted by the whole thing and took A Drunk Man, the poem basically and many other books, but that in particular, off to the wee hut that I had at the time, actually beginning to panic massively because I'm not an arts correspondent or anything like that. And there was a point where it just really hit me what that kind of poem was about. ⁓ So that sort of remained with me. And then you began to see how much other people rated.
this man that just doesn't get mentioned at all, Hugh McDermott, and he was Christopher Murray Grieve invented the character of McDermott. And that's something actually there's one of the speakers, Professor Carruthers has a quote here saying, Scotland's identity did not emerge. was written. Walter Scott created the myths. Burns was mythologised and McDermott was mythologised and demonised. So it's time to ask how much of Scotland
is based in actual history and how much was made up by brilliant but unreliable creative geniuses. So I think that's that's fairly interesting. And ⁓ there's also an observation, you make Dermott's biographer, who's also helped organize the conference, Alexander Lindlater, was remembering that back in 1973, ⁓ the Chivi at the Stag and the Black Black Oil, that amazing play that toured the Highlands and beyond by 784.
Fraser (57:40)
Yeah.
Les (58:01)
ended a performance in the Glasgow Citizens Theatre by standing to applaud a member of the audience. It was the 80 year old Hugh McDermid, the heretical communist nationalist, unwanted by the National Party he helped found in 1928 and expelled by the Communist Party in 1938. So he goes on to talk about anybody who thinks that, you know, nationalism was left of centre were mistaken and looks at the roots of it all. ⁓
and McDermott's kind of awkwardness, cussedness within the whole thing, but which nonetheless brings up what is sometimes seen as a sort of contradiction in the Scots nature, really gives it tremendous sort of descriptive power in that poem. Anyway, I'm not fit to sort of eulogise on it, but there is one hell of a line up going on. I'm going anyway.
There's Gerda Stevenson, poet, Murray Pitoch. There's all sorts of people going to be at this and Sally Magnusson seems to be chairing it. So it's on on Saturday, the 21st of November in Glasgow Royal Concert Hall. It's a whole day of it. ⁓ So it looks like it'll be a great way to just really get your teeth into our culture.
Fraser (59:23)
Well, that sounds absolutely fantastic. And a light lunch is also included, which you kinda kind of whack either just to dumb it down a little bit, but it is a fantastic ⁓ line out including ⁓ being opened by Sir Tom Devine, which is great to see Tom ⁓ back out and speaking. So ⁓ fantastic.
Les (59:27)
Yeah, it's good, yes.
Indeed.
Fraser (59:46)
Mine before we put the link up and they'll disappear. ⁓ but ⁓ absolutely worthwhile to to go to and a really fascinating ⁓ conference coming up. Well, on that cultural high point, we will see you next week, chumps.