Janis and Graham 2

Councillor Graham Campbell and co-convener Janice Wilson discuss the recent changes in the SNP leadership. John Swinney's appointment as leader was expected, and it seems he had already negotiated a deal with Kate Forbes before his announcement. Forbes has been given responsibility for Gaelic and economic growth, which may help improve the party's relationship with business. The cabinet now consists mostly of members from Humza Yousaf's team, with some additions to balance it out. The focus of the government will be on cost of living and child poverty, as well as practical policies. However, there are concerns about Forbes potentially watering down progressive policies like the buffer zone. The removal of the well-being economy title suggests a shift towards the center. Overall, the direction of the party will depend on the practical policies they propose. Well, hello everyone. This is Councillor Graham Campbell, as a co-convener of SNP Socialist. I'm joining with my co-convener, Janice Wilson. Hi, Janice. Hey, this has been another quiet week in politics. God, so much rest, quiet, almost nothing's happened. What about this week? This week was not a surprise, and a huge surprise at once. So yeah, John Swinney, not a surprise. Kate Forbes, maybe it's not a surprise, but it's what I didn't want to happen. But, you know, better deputy as leader, so yeah. Well, let's unpack the surprises in all of that. There was clearly, when John Swinney had announced that he was going to be leader, you know, going for leader, which was a week ago in politics, we were kind of, we had an inkling that he'd already talked to Kate Forbes. Yes. And, you know, so I think he must have negotiated this deal before he even stood. So I think that's why there was such a delay. Those few days before he announced, that was when he agreed this deal. So it was all about, you know, Kate Forbes was always going to come back in the cabinet. The question is which job she would have. So let's unpick the jobs. The things that we were worried about was obviously we didn't think she should be in charge of the finance, budget setting brief, because we think she was, you know, not the best person with her neoliberal politics to put the ideas to the market economy. We didn't think it was good having that person in charge. However, what she's been given, yes, she's deputy FM, but she has been given Gaelic and responsibility for the economy, for economic growth, essentially. And so that seems to be the deal. She's been given a brief on that. And I think Swinney's calculated that that will bring on side that section of the membership, maybe in some members of the public, which has been sceptical about SNP's relationship with business. I think that's why he's done that. That's a signaling thing. It also obviously buys peace within the party because it means her supporters, one of them Ivan McKee, my local MSP, has been brought into the government in the junior minister positions. I think that's mainly to sort of placate that. I think, you know, with Ivan McKee being brought in as a major supporter of Kate Forbes, that kind of balances the cabinet out a bit in their strength. So essentially, we've lost the Greens in the cabinet, and we've got Kate Forbes and her allies in the government in replacement for it. Would you reckon for that? Is that good for the left regressive, you know, direction that we'd hope would be maintained? Possibly not. Is it good for Unite? Yes. Is it good to bring the Humza v. Kate debates that we had at the last leadership election? Is it good to bring these two people together? Absolutely. Is Gaelic good? 100%. That's fantastic. It's also, I would say, when I had to look on the steps of Bute House, there's far more women than men, which is good. So there are positives. But there's Kate Forbes. Well, it is mostly Humza's cabinet, though. I mean, basically, everybody who was in Humza's cabinet pretty much was except for Jamie losing the independence brief, as Jamie Happer losing the independence brief. Has that brief gone? The way that they've said it is that essentially, it's gone because every minister will be a minister for independence. That's how it's been. Okay, I didn't pick up on that. Okay, that's interesting. But it's a measure that it is clearly being, the signal it's sending is deprioritising, spending all that money on government documents that nobody's going to read, in effect, reasonably good ones. And it's, it seemed that they're not preparing for independence, like any time in the next two years, running up to the Holyrood elections. It means this is a government's going to concentrate on the practicals of cost of living, the general direction of policy around child poverty, which is what John Swinney said. It's worth remembering, I think one of our members pointed this out, who's Olaf, that it's basically that Kate Sporres, when she was finance secretary, she did, in fact, introduce the Scottish child payment, which, as I always say, is a game changer. So on the one hand, we might be worried about her personal politics, but actually, as the representative of that government, she in fact delivered one of the best reforms that it has carried out. So while people say, you know, I might leave the party if Kate's in, maybe I felt that a little bit like that. But actually, if you look at the balance of cabinet, it's essentially Hunza's cabinet. It's essentially, everybody's in the same job. I'm very glad in particular that Shona Robinson, while she's not deputy FM, she is going to be in control of the budget again. So that's somebody with clear left credentials, who is in charge of the direction of the finance. So in a way, I'm kind of reassured that those people all stay in their places. You know, Neil Gray's health, you know, Mario McAllen, staying in her position. There's a good, you know, honest, they're going to send the left people who are going to stay in government, stay in their position. So the main turning of that direction, I think it mostly will be all right. That said, though, it won't be greatly imaginative. John is pragmatic, he wants to keep the team together. This will do that. There's no doubt that it will do that. It's, you know, we were happy when John took over because we thought, yes, that's the right person to unify this team in the run up to the two elections that we've got. An election this year, yeah. I mean, in terms of Kate, I don't know how much damage she can do to the buffer zone, the policy that's going through Parliament. I know she voted for it at stage one and somebody pointed out that she may well table amendments to kind of water it down. And I think that's something we need to pay attention to. Because it has to go through. Janice, you've muted yourself. She can't water that down. And that is something that I'll certainly be looking out for. Sorry, we missed quite a lot of that. Could you repeat it? Oh, sorry. The buffer zone policy that she voted for at stage one, it's the potential that she could perhaps water it down when it comes to the final vote. And I think it's important to keep an eye on her regarding that particular policy, because it's one that is a very progressive policy. It's one that we need to wholeheartedly support and vote for. So yeah, I'll be paying attention to how she progresses with that particular topic. Funnily enough, I was at the launch that John had at Glasgow University earlier in the week, where everybody was there. So basically, this cabinet was there. Most of Glasgow City Council's leading cabinet members were there, including the leader, and a few media and a few headquarters staff. It was just interesting, the sequencing. They had Lorna, the national secretary, did the shortest speech ever introducing the leader, literally said, there was only one nomination. And I introduced John Swinney, who is now the leader, then stepped off stage. That was it. So it was quite bizarre. And it was interesting how John dealt with the questions from the mainstream media. I mean, there were some idiotic questions from the BBC, the Daily Mail guy, I don't even know the guy's name. But they both asked really stupid questions. But it was interesting, the range of questions that the obvious one should ask, well, is, you know, can you recover this in time for the election? Are you just refreshing the same team that's already failed on things like health, education, blah, blah, you know, they're always talking about how terrible education is in Scotland, when we've got record exam results and record, you know, young people's destinations, record numbers of young people from work backgrounds go to uni. Apparently, our education is terrible. Higher paid teachers as well. Yeah, that too. So, you know, John gently and firmly dealt with those really deftly, because he's got the experience. So I think on that level, John's handling of it was superb. But I had a chat with Guy Guy there, because he was very cagey about he must have already he's going to return to government as a minister. And he's been made a minister. And he's going to be in Shona Robison's department. So he's a minister under the finance secretary's brief. So my slight concern is that somebody who I know is, you know, you know, center, center on center ground on economics, is an ex businessman, and he's like, so he's very big on the market economy and the normal way that capitalism operates. So that person will be a capable supporter in that department influencing how we spend money, and also how we generate wealth. Now, that may not be in itself a bad thing, because if that means that business people and markets and everybody have confidence that this government's going to do economic growth, that's great. But the main change that we've seen in terms of direction has been the loss of the well being economy idea. That has been dropped from the titles of the ministries. So we've clearly shifted away from a green just transition a bit. We've still got some of that we've still got a net zero marital talents still in place. But the dropping of the well being economy is a is a clear shift away from that pointing in the left direction. Yeah. Has it been replaced with anything? No, that I can see it's just been left vacant, ideologically. So I think that's clearly a signal that Kate and co have have shifted the government's direction more to the center. That's we can't deny that that's a shift to the center question then is what practical policies does it come up with? And if John says his priorities, child poverty, then what other measures are there going to be? It may be that some of those will be good progressive reforms. But if it's reliant on a tactic strategy for economic growth, that's mainstream, you know, liberal economics, it's not going to work. That's not the first thing I would say is, you know, look at the way this, this UK economy has worked over the last few years. It's a basket case, partly because of the errors of that trust government. But it's, you know, people's real costs around mortgage, taxation, you know, the just general economic environment is not great. And the levers the Scottish government has to do anything about those are very slim and limited to this, the taxation powers we have, and we've used them to create progressive taxation. So I can't see what more they can do to create much economic growth. But if that's their strategy, I'd be interested to see what it's going to what it's going to deliver. Do you think they will alter the tax brackets? Do you think that's something that they will consider to bring them more in line with the rest of the UK, which isn't a great thing at all? Or do you think they'll keep them as they are? There is a philosophy I think that people like Kate Forbes will have, which will say that you can't overtax the very wealthy or the upper bands of middle class, because there's a point at which you will not receive more revenue for the higher percentage rate. I think there's some truth to that. And there's, you know, I'm all for taxing the rich fairly, and, you know, making them pay their taxes and not avoid it. The question is, is how you get them to pay it and stay. Now, you know, we've proven that with higher tax brackets and banding, that the rich don't move. Despite all the threats to do so, in fact, more people are coming to Scotland. So we've got an environment where we can tax higher, and it works because people get more back for it, because they get free tuition for their kids, they get free health, they get all these things that we have in a decent civilized society, because we're in Scotland and we're under SNP government. So it's not putting people off having that higher tax bracket, because they're getting more for it. So as long as you're getting more for it, I think people will put up with that. The question is, are they getting more for it? So that's going to be my test of this government is what it actually does. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I know, we've got the Westminster elections this year. And obviously, we've got the manifesto coming out for that, which I believe was going to put independence front and centre. How will that work out? That won't change with Swinney's new leadership? No, that will remain. Well, will the line one, you know, sentence one, stay in place? Yeah. Even if it does symbolically, what will it mean? Because we've had loads of mandates, people pointed that out in debates we've had this week. We can't, we have no official way or means democratically of making this come about or them respecting our mandates. I think Keir Starmer coming into government at the end of this year is highly unlikely to change that situation. Not unless the SNP wins all of it, all of the Westminster seat. And we can all agree that's not going to happen. But we could still win the election in Scotland, but be left with a government that's equally resistant to agreeing to any kind of choice. So maybe we were down the route of, well, Scotland needs more powers. And maybe we talk about more devolved powers. I mean, that was the Tommy Shepard motion that came to conference last year, that we should have a specific set of measures that we asked for, if we don't get a referendum, to move the thing on a bit before the Hollywood election, so that there's more powers coming to Scotland, do something about the economy, do something about what we can spend on public services. You know, these are the things that we will have to have if we want to tackle the constant living crisis. It's clear that that's the main topic for the public and the electorate. The powers that they've got don't actually allow them to fix the problems that people are telling us that are the most important to them. And then the Hollywood election becomes a de facto referendum. Yes, I'm in favour of that strategy staying, but clearly it's going to be, I mean, John's strategy has always been one of those gradualists from 20 years ago. You know, he's always the one who said, oh, we must govern competently to show that Scotland can be an independent country. And that is clear. And he's right. He's right. Yeah, he's right. And I also have high hopes that I'm kind of uniting the party and bringing on people who wouldn't necessarily perhaps vote SNP, especially when Starmer is making such a bad job as Labour leader down south regarding his U-turns on almost every single thing that he was elected leader on. And also who stands on Gaza, which I don't think we can ignore. He's now calling for a ceasefire. Now that they're doing what they said they wouldn't and they're invading Rafa. And it's far too little, far too late. And I think it's going to be interesting to see the people who stand in the Westminster elections as independents and the pro-Palestine candidates. I think that's something we need to look out for. And I also think, I've not heard John Finnie's view on the conflict. John did an interview with, sorry, I'm saying that John did an interview with Amjad Bashir and Amjad's interview was spot on with him. He basically said, yeah, so he basically got John to say, you know, yes, he's for any of arms sales to Israel. He wants recognition of Palestine. He wants the UK government to stop sending arms. So he's very clear on those questions and he commended Hamza for his clarity on it too. So the government's stance is not going to change on those questions. So I suppose in terms of support, the section of the population really passionately cares about Gaza and about what's happening in Palestine has already been lost to Labour. They would have calculated that they will win more defections from the Tory vote to replace that left-leaning electorate. So that's their calculation, that they can afford to lose them, which, you know, very, very disrespectful and all of that, but that's Labour through and through. And when you've got people like David Lammy, who are actually sponsored by pro-Israel lobby people, it's not a great surprise that they're not going to denounce the Israeli government for its atrocities against the Palestinians. Emily Thorburn as well. But what was interesting was the person crossing the floor to join Labour. I kind of watched it and I just thought the Labour government, when I was growing up in the 80s under Thatcher, if somebody had tried to cross from the Tory bench to the Labour bench, there would have been an absolute outcry. But now they're like, yeah, here come, come on, open arms. We're basically, we've got the same policies as you anyway, but we're doing them with a red rosette. And it's interesting to see that none of the socialists, in inverted commas, in the Labour Party, if there are any left, are commenting on this, certainly not in this area here where I stay in East Lothian. They're still patting George Starmer on the back saying, yeah, well done, well done. And it's incredible. It's incredible. Well, the only person I know from Scotland that Scottish Labour has denounced is Neil Findlay, the former Labour MSP. He was very angry about it. And I know that there are lots of Labour MPs down south who are very, very angry about it, particularly women, particularly black women members who have been fighting racism and sexism and misogyny of the kind that Natalie Elphick's politics has been creating. You know, that woman is a very, very evil, nasty politician. She's a Boris Johnson, Newkipper type. And if someone like that is welcoming the Labour Party, the Labour Party is certainly a changed Labour Party. It's just changed into something that's incompatible with any, you know, democratic socialist voting intention. She looks terrific. And I don't think she'll be the last. I think as they realise that it's the damage limitation now, isn't it? And if they know they're going to be welcomed by the Labour Party, they're going to walk the floor because they'll get elected as Labour MPs. I should say that in her case, like with the doctor from, you know, the doctor who defected last week, neither of them are standing again, but they've obviously been offered some position. Well, they're not. OK, right. You'll see, they won't stand as MPs, but they'll probably put the House of Lords, that's a standard, you know, inducement, isn't it? So let's see if he puts them in the House of Lords. OK, that'll be interesting. Or on a quango. They'll be on some quango. Some research, isn't it? You know, how to make nuclear weapons. Natalie Elphick's going to help you decide how to do that. I chose the wrong career. I should have been a politician and, yeah. Well, mate, I am a politician. I've chosen the wrong career. You know, this thing of having principles and then trying to implement them, that's bad. When you're in the broad church, you know, our wonderful broad church, a lot has been said about the broad church, the SNP, and it being a national movement and who it represents. It's got its left, it's got its right, it's got its centre. I mean, I think Ailee had a piece on UnGag not long ago about, you know, how she understood the left and the right and the centre. Obviously, you've quite got the right, but it's still important that the different, you know, groups of people that support different angles, the Kates and so on, they're all inconsistent. It's not like before when you could say somebody was a fundamentalist and somebody was a gradualist around independence. It's a bit more murky. Our line-up since the sort of transphobic wing left and joined ALBA, you know, clearly that very right wing has gone, but we still have a centre and we still have a left, and it's that mix of how the centre and the left will stay together. What can we agree on that's progressive, that takes us in a forward direction? What's your sort of take on it? About how we can work together? Yeah, between, you know, what principles, you know, relationship we have with centrists? I think it's about, yeah, it's, I don't know, I don't know. Give and take, priorities and what you're willing to kind of roll back in terms of principles. I don't know. I don't know. I've got nothing in common with centrists, so I can't imagine you sitting down and kind of, yeah, I find it quite difficult, but then I'm not in government, and in government you've got to, kind of, yeah, you've got to prioritise. And there's a word I'm looking for and I can't think of it at the moment, and it was in my head a minute ago. Compromise. That's the word. I think you've got to, you've got to think about what you're willing to compromise to meet middle ground. So, I suppose, if you've got centrists, you've got far-left, you've got to come together somewhere in the centre-left, and I don't think it's an impossible task. I think when you consider that, you know, not everyone in Scotland is left-wing, you've got a lot of centrists, and I think, yeah, I think you've just got to ensure, like you say, a broad church. Something for everyone and compromises will have to be made. I have to say the experience of local government, and having, I've been, this week I was seven years in the job, so it's a great anniversary for me as well, you know, my goodness, I'm in this seven years, and what I've done, you know, can say from experience of being in a council group, obviously we've got the same balance, you know, there's, we're mostly 100 supporters, but there's one or two Kate supporters there as well, and if you're looking at, you know, on most social policies, they're not greatly different. They may differ slightly on the degree they want, you know, thriving business, obviously, to come to Glasgow and create jobs and, you know, the relative level of enthusiasm they have. Some are very, very enthusiastic about Police Scotland, I'm less enthusiastic because of my experience as a human being of a non-white origin. I kind of have a very different take on how to hold police accountable, so even amongst my group, a very different approach to it. So, we make compromises in order to, you know, get our main policies across around housing, around, you know, reforming the council, defending public services, getting community empowerment going, and we can show that we've got real, tangible things we have done which have made a real difference to people's lives. So, as long as those things are there, and those policies at a national level are there, that Glasgow continues to thrive, that cities start to get a grip around the housing crisis, that the local government is funded properly, these are all questions which John will have to tackle. We had not just the Bute House Agreement, we actually had the Verity House Agreement, which was meant to empower local government. So, I'd like to see if John will live up to that promise to make local government a bit more autonomous and self-governing in the financials department, because if it can be, then that would be a positive thing, that councils can produce real results on the ground if they're given the powers and the funding. One of the headlines I noticed yesterday, and I tend not to look at newspapers, but one of them was a housing charity asking for the £200 million that had been taken out of the housing budget, and, you know, it would be amazing if it could get put back into the housing budget, but what is your view on that? What do you think the Scottish government can do with limited funds, limited resources, to plug that gap? Is it something that can be done with compromises? The trouble that all of these social questions have is they all come up against the independence question. The reason why, if devolution worked, then there would be no need for a nationalist movement. If it was possible to solve any of these questions of infrastructure, social well-being, economic equality, if it was possible to solve any of those things under devolution, do you not think that politicians would have done that? The point is that that structure is not possible. Devolution is not possible to challenge or change any of those things. Neil Gray was saying on debate night during the week that the majority of its time is spent mitigating against the negative impact of UK government policy around welfare and the economy and so on. We're mitigating. We've reached the limit of what 14 years of Tory austerity have done to Scotland's budget over this time. If we could have done it with that far-reduced budget for the country coming from the UK government, do you not think that any government would have done that? Jack McConnell returned a billion quid to unspent funds and he didn't know what to do with it. 1.5 billion, I believe it was. Imagine, 1.5 billion. Those days are well gone. That's the point. Devolution cannot and cannot be made to work. We need independence for all of those questions. The infrastructure you need to sort out, for example, insulation of existing buildings, insulation of new buildings, that's billions and billions and billions of pounds. The transition from oil to renewables and oil and gas to renewables. We've got the threat to Grangemouth now. They're subsidising that rat Jim Ratcliffe to the tunes of hundreds of billions of pounds so it can close the main oil terminal in the country, not replace it with a renewable form of energy. These are the things that we're not in control of. These are vital things. We need independent powers to do anything about that. Now, people who are honest about that know that and I wish that those who are criticising Scotland not coming in suggest how and what budgeters should take this money from to do it because they gave 80 million to housing, which is okay. It's a good contribution. It's a good start, but it's not going to solve our housing crisis, which is immense, as it is in the rest of the UK. But we've done more about it because we've got rid of Right to Buy years ago and we've been moving council houses than anybody else, making 120,000. So at least we're contributing to solving the problem, but we don't have the full powers to do the whole job and people have to understand that that's what is the problem. Yeah, yeah. No, you're right. You're absolutely 100% right, but I'm just thinking as we go into this general election, those are things that are going to come up on the doors. Yeah, waiting lists, things like that, yeah. Quite rightly so, people will raise, you know, my health service appointments in the waiting list so longer than they have been. They're way less longer than they are in England and Wales, but that's no small comfort if you're in, you know, in a part of Scotland where the health service is not accessible to you yet. We're going to be answerable for that, quite rightly so. We've obviously over-prioritized health and education at the expense of most other things, so things like college places are being let down. That's one area where we're not doing well and we have to solve that problem so the college lecturers aren't on strike because, you know, we have to give them fair pay, we have to give them fair wage and fair funding for that section of the education sector, but we have to decide what role in the economy it plays. Those are fundamental big decisions which we don't have the powers in the Scottish government to sort out. The truth is, of course, our parliaments are white. They will ask us to solve things that I know we haven't got money to solve. Thank you, Janice. Thank you very much. See you next week because I'm sure nothing will have changed by next week. Not much, no.