0:07

I'm Neil Patterson, welcome to the Sky

0:09

News Daily. A lot is happening in

0:11

politics at the moment, north and south

0:13

of the border. Later we'll find out

0:16

what's occurring in Holyrood with our Scotland

0:18

correspondent, as the SNP's Hamza

0:20

Yusuf brings to an end his coalition

0:22

agreement with the Greens, and

0:24

now it is the First Minister whose future

0:26

could well be in jeopardy. But

0:29

we start as many of you will be

0:31

ending your day on the trains, or

0:33

at least Labour's plans in government to get

0:35

them working properly. The opposition

0:38

says it will nationalise, re-nationalise

0:40

in fact, most passenger rail

0:42

services within five years. Here's

0:45

Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Haig. Labour

0:48

will sweep away the broken model

0:50

and bring private operators into public

0:52

ownership as their contracts expire. We

0:55

will establish Great British Railways, a

0:57

single directing mind to control our

1:00

railways in the passenger interest. Yes,

1:03

we're keeping the name. I'm afraid I

1:05

was over-rolled on calling it Rail Britannia. Our

1:09

Deputy Political Editor is Sam Coates and he

1:11

joins us on the podcast. Sam, good to

1:14

see you. Explain exactly what is Labour's

1:16

plan? Because dear Lord, anyone

1:19

who has used the railway network in

1:21

the past five, ten

1:23

years will have tales of woe about

1:26

their experience. At the heart

1:28

of Labour's plan is

1:30

essentially a move to nationalise

1:32

the railways. What's going on is

1:35

that they are saying that every

1:37

time one of the train franchises

1:39

expires, they will allow the

1:41

control of that to lapse into public

1:44

ownership. Now, there are

1:46

already a number of train operating

1:48

services that are in public ownership

1:50

like South Eastern, but Labour over,

1:53

they think the next five year

1:55

period will basically allow all

1:57

of them to follow suit. all

2:00

of the companies that currently run the

2:02

railways, run those different lines, will lose

2:04

control of them and they will instead

2:07

be brought under the control, as it

2:09

were, of Great British Railways, an armed-flanked

2:11

body in which Labour says that it

2:13

will set up on day one of

2:16

a Labour government. And presumably they have

2:18

fully costed all of this, Sam, as

2:20

it always becomes the mantra. How are

2:22

they funding it? Well, because

2:25

they're not interrupting the contracts. They say

2:27

that every time one of the

2:29

lines contracts, one of the company's contracts,

2:31

laps, there will be no fee and therefore

2:34

effectively there is no great down payment, there

2:36

is no upfront cost. But

2:38

the biggest question around all of

2:40

this, Neil, is about cost in

2:42

the medium to long term. And

2:44

you've got to start by acknowledging

2:46

that commuters, users of

2:48

the railway, are pretty unhappy. They're unhappy

2:51

with the frequency of services, the quality

2:53

of services, the number of trains, the

2:55

type of trains. Generally, I

2:57

think customer satisfaction levels are very low. And

2:59

that's why if you look at the polling,

3:01

this policy of nationalisation is incredibly popular and

3:03

it's why Jeremy Corbyn had it and Kirste

3:06

Albers-Laver have decided to inherit

3:09

it. But the problem that

3:11

privatisation undertaken by John Major, you remember

3:13

in the early 90s, was meant to

3:15

solve is that so long as the railways

3:18

are in public ownership, then if

3:20

you want to improve the trains,

3:22

if you want to buy more

3:24

trains, if you want to upgrade

3:26

the trains, modernise and run more

3:28

services, then all of that has

3:30

to be done by basically, you

3:32

know, finding money from the Treasury.

3:34

But those funds are, you know,

3:36

are fiercely fought over. And in

3:38

effect, back pre the early 90s,

3:41

the trains were in competition with health

3:43

and education, other public services for a

3:45

slice of the sort of public spending

3:47

pie. It's not clear to

3:49

me that in 10, 15

3:51

years, there will be a greater appetite

3:53

to prioritise trains, which are after all

3:56

only used by a tiny fragment, tiny

3:58

section of the population. over

4:00

health and education, for instance. And

4:02

so the question is, is

4:05

this going to solve the actual problems

4:07

that commuters face, or is

4:09

it just doing big structural reform, but

4:12

it's unclear whether or not that's gonna

4:14

mean that people experience changes. Yeah, and

4:16

look, there are lots of interesting details

4:18

in this plan as outlined earlier by

4:20

the Shadow Transport Secretary Louise Hague. For

4:22

example, the fact that, you know, whilst

4:24

they will be nationalizing in part, they

4:27

will not be bringing into public ownership

4:29

the rolling stock, the trains, the carriages,

4:31

through what are known as Roscoe's Rolling

4:33

Stock Companies. On top of that, you

4:35

know, best price guarantees, an immediate refund

4:37

if your train is delayed. All of

4:40

this sounds great, but the killer question

4:42

is whether or not it's actually gonna

4:44

be cheaper. One of the

4:46

arguments that Labour is making is that they

4:48

can see billions of pounds of efficiencies to

4:50

be made. And on top of that, the

4:52

one thing that won't need to happen given

4:54

that the railway companies will no longer exist,

4:56

no longer run their services, you won't need

4:58

to pay money as dividends to shareholders of

5:01

the train operating companies. I was at the

5:03

event with Lou Hay this morning and I

5:05

said, okay, that's fair enough, but have you

5:07

got an agreement from Rachel Reeves, the Shadow

5:09

Chancellor, that if you find a saving, by,

5:11

for instance, not having to pay dividends, that it

5:14

can be recycled into the railways? Have you

5:16

ring-fenced all the benefits of any

5:18

economy drive or any efficiency savings?

5:21

So we would hope that we would reinvest some of

5:23

those savings, do not get agreement that all of it

5:25

would be, but the taxpayer, what we've got to remember,

5:28

already subsidises the railways by over £4 billion

5:30

a year. That level of

5:32

subsidy has not changed since pre-COVID in the

5:34

previous system. The taxpayer is already footing the

5:36

bill for the railways in a very broken

5:39

and inefficient model. Passengers are paying the price

5:41

and the taxpayers are getting very poor value

5:43

for money. These reforms will allow us to

5:45

demonstrate that we can get better bang for

5:47

our buck and deliver a better service for

5:49

passengers as well. So yes,

5:52

there'll be efficiencies. Yes, there will be more

5:54

money going to the Treasury pot, but no

5:56

guarantee that that then won't be snaffled away

5:58

for things that Keir Starmer and his... team

6:00

think are of a greater priority than the

6:02

railways themselves. And this goes to

6:05

the heart of the issue. The thing that

6:07

the Tories have alighted on, and it's

6:09

an interesting argument, is why fund the

6:12

railways to such an extent given so

6:14

few people effectively use it? I

6:16

don't think that Rishi Sunak is a massive

6:18

fan of trains. I don't think he wants

6:20

to allocate a big section of the public

6:22

spending pie to it. The question is, will

6:24

a successor, a Labour successor to Rishi Sunak

6:26

actually, when they're having to make hard choices

6:28

between different government departments, think any different?

6:31

You squint it, you look at plans

6:33

like this, they do look very old

6:35

Labour, particularly when you're banding round words

6:37

like nationalisation. You look at what Sir

6:39

Keir Starmer has been trying to do with the party in the way

6:41

in which it is trying to portray

6:43

itself at the moment that they don't want to

6:46

bind themselves necessarily to a

6:48

plan which looks just

6:51

a little bit 20th century perhaps.

6:53

I would depart from one implied

6:56

suggestion in your question, Neil,

6:58

which is that this plan,

7:00

which was effectively a plan

7:02

that you could find in Jeremy Corbyn's

7:04

manifesto in 2019, is

7:07

still in Labour's policy prospectus

7:09

because one of the more

7:11

left-wing members of the Shadow Cabinet is in

7:13

charge of the transport portfolio. This is a

7:15

Keir Starmer plan, and make no mistake about

7:18

it. And it's the fact it's a Keir

7:20

Starmer plan that I know with

7:23

affairs directors, CEOs of big companies

7:25

are looking very, very carefully at

7:28

precisely this plan to just work out and

7:30

just think about what Labour's

7:33

relationship with business is really,

7:35

really going to look like.

7:38

You listen in detail to the

7:40

language used by Lou Haig, and

7:42

I was very struck by one

7:44

phrase, which is where she talked

7:46

about the payments to shareholders, basically

7:48

the dividends that are paid out

7:50

to private companies who run the

7:52

railways, being wasteful. That

7:55

language, I think you could find, rankles

7:57

people in the business world. have

8:00

been quite careful about doing

8:02

is trying to control which things

8:05

are dividing lines with the Tories. What's

8:07

interesting about today in the railways is

8:09

as the Tories have been out and

8:11

about, Mark Harper just interviewed him saying

8:13

this is a bad idea, they want

8:15

a dividing line, they want a public

8:17

fight over this because they spy the

8:19

politics of this, which you can

8:21

see from positive public opinion polling, works for

8:23

them. So this is one of the few

8:25

fights that they want to have. Do

8:28

you enjoy a train journey? The jobs

8:30

we do, we travel around the country

8:32

all the time, there's a Scotsman pasting

8:34

London, I've taken long train journeys quite

8:36

a bit, I enjoy it as a

8:38

mode of transport or at least I

8:40

used to quite a lot. Some of

8:42

the entertainment value has been taken out of

8:44

it. I like good train journeys

8:46

and I hate bad train journeys. There

8:49

is nothing worse than an overheated

8:51

carriage with no WiFi on a

8:53

train heading south outside Stephenish because

8:55

there's an unspecified blockage on the

8:57

line with no updates or

8:59

too many updates from the train

9:01

driver for comfort listening to somebody in

9:03

the quiet carriage with their headphones

9:05

blaring out and contemplating going to

9:07

the restaurant carriage which actually you

9:09

know has run out of almost everything and wondering

9:12

whether or not it's worth the effort given that

9:14

you're going to have to walk over all of

9:16

the suitcases that have been left in the

9:18

middle of the aisle because the train is

9:21

three times oversubscribed because the previous two

9:23

trains were cancelled so I'm less keen

9:25

on those journeys but the nice ones yeah sure they're

9:27

great. Brilliant I'll see you next time I'm getting on

9:29

the sleep with Sam. Take care thanks again.

9:32

Cheers. Sam

9:34

will of course be getting the bottom bunk

9:37

but let's take a little bit of time now to

9:39

walk ourselves through the plan and the need for it

9:42

with Nigel Harris former editor of Rail Magazine

9:44

and co-host of the Green Signals podcast. Nigel

9:46

great to have you with us. It's great

9:48

to talk to you Neil as ever. I'm

9:51

gonna start with a big one is this

9:53

going to work? There is no reason why

9:55

it shouldn't. I have to say Labour

9:57

has spent a long time saying nothing more than a year.

10:00

than publicly owned, publicly accountable.

10:02

And I've been a fairly vocal critic saying,

10:05

look, you need to give us some detail.

10:07

And we finally got it. And I have to say, the

10:10

more I read it, the more I like it. It

10:13

seems to be quite pragmatic. There

10:15

is, of course, some ideological stuff

10:17

in there. But my fear was

10:19

that it would be totally animal

10:22

farm ideologically like private,

10:24

bad, public good. And

10:27

it's not like that. Louise Higgs made

10:29

clear that where it works, the private

10:31

sector will continue to have a role,

10:33

primarily in the freight market. There's the

10:36

few open access operators. There's the rolling

10:38

stock leasing companies, though I suspect their

10:40

meal, their embracing of the Roth goes

10:43

down to the fabulous cost it would

10:45

be to buy them

10:47

out. Just explain that point a little more,

10:49

because that is something that lept out to

10:51

me that yet we are re-nationalizing passenger services

10:53

within five years. But in terms of the

10:56

rolling stock, in terms of the things that

10:58

we will be sitting in, those

11:00

will still be owned by someone else. Yeah.

11:02

And I mean, that's no different to as

11:04

opposed to aviation, is it? When you fly

11:07

off on your holidays, you know,

11:09

the aircraft is usually owned by a leasing

11:11

company, and not the airline. But

11:14

it was set up, that was set

11:16

up at privatization because it was feared

11:18

quite rightly that the train operating companies

11:20

of only seven years wouldn't want to

11:22

afford to buy trains. I think they've

11:24

done a reasonable job because the investment

11:27

has been incredible. We're talking

11:29

about billions and billions and billions of

11:31

pounds, which the

11:33

railway or the government would otherwise have to

11:35

come up with. But you know, the idea

11:37

of buying complete fleets, especially if we're going

11:39

back into the era where the

11:42

railway has to compete with education and health

11:44

and everything else, it's not a bad

11:46

thing. The sort of things that they've set up to

11:50

commit to, which is effectively to

11:52

create a boring, safe, reliable railway. And that's

11:54

what we all want. That is exactly the

11:57

point I was about to make. All we

11:59

want want is a train service

12:01

that is punctual, that is clean, that

12:03

runs to time and doesn't cost

12:06

the air. Now you've been mentioning the

12:08

rolling stock companies, the Rosscos, so we've

12:10

got trains that work. So

12:12

why do we have a situation

12:14

where pretty much everyone universally believes

12:17

that right now the railway

12:19

network doesn't work? Since

12:21

Covid, the passenger network

12:23

collapsed overnight. All the franchises

12:25

died at a stroke on March

12:28

20th when they were all

12:30

told not to travel. The government

12:32

converted all the franchises into operating

12:35

contracts. What had been franchisees,

12:37

then their relationship with

12:39

the government was no different to your relationship

12:41

with your, I don't know, your decorator, your

12:43

gardener. You know, you pay them a fee

12:45

and they do your job and it's just

12:47

like that. The downside

12:49

of that is that it has allowed

12:52

the department for transport to absolutely micromanage

12:54

the railway. I wonder if it's just

12:56

to say though Nigel that there weren't

12:58

problems with the railway network that predate

13:00

Covid though. There's always been problems with

13:02

the railway network. It's the biggest and

13:04

most complicated machine in the world with

13:06

moving parts from Lands Enter Jomergroat to

13:08

Barmouth to Yarmouth and it relies on

13:10

tens of thousands of people turning up

13:12

every day and doing the right thing

13:14

at the right time. And it's a

13:16

perfect example of chaos theory. One of

13:18

the gate lines can fail at Bristol

13:20

Temple needs and within half an hour

13:22

the suburban service ran Newcastle is

13:25

wrecked. So yes, there's always been problems, but

13:27

you know as well as I do that

13:29

having the problem isn't the problem. It's not

13:31

doing anything about it that's the problem. And

13:34

that's really what's happened with railways. They

13:36

have not been able to let specialised

13:38

people do the right thing and sort

13:41

it out. And if there's one sentence

13:44

in all the stuff I'm reading at

13:46

the minute from Louise Haig, it's this.

13:48

Labour's plans announced today will create a

13:50

unified publicly owned, accountable and arms length

13:52

body Great Bidget Railways, which is

13:54

a crucial bit, which will be led

13:56

by rail experts and not whitehall. I

13:59

can't. cannot stress how important

14:01

those few words are because

14:03

what we need is, and

14:06

they've said they'll set up the same Great

14:08

British Railways, which is the same body that

14:10

the government set it to set up five

14:12

years ago. That body needs to be able

14:15

to turn to the government and say, right,

14:17

Mr DFT, what sort of

14:19

railway do you want and

14:22

how much are you prepared to pay

14:24

for it? DFT Department for Transport, of

14:26

course. And with those two questions

14:28

answered, the DFT needs to go

14:31

away. And then GBR

14:33

needs to turn to its market to the

14:35

railways and the industry to say, right, we've

14:37

been asked for this railway at that cost

14:39

and get on with it, done

14:41

by people who know what they're

14:44

doing. I'm going to mention, however,

14:46

two words which used to strike

14:48

fear into the heart of every

14:50

commuter, British Rail. And

14:52

when we had that nationalised

14:55

railway service, more often

14:57

than not, it wasn't running to time, the

14:59

rolling stock was of low quality. I

15:01

remember the sandwiches that we used to get

15:03

on board. How can we

15:06

guarantee that this is not just the

15:08

start of a process by which we

15:10

head back in that direction? And the answer,

15:12

Neil, is having the right people where. Let

15:14

me give you a really good example. One

15:17

of our best train operators and by

15:19

a country mile is LNER,

15:22

Northern North Eastern Railway from King's

15:24

Cross to York, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Aberdeen,

15:26

Imaness, Glasgow, the East

15:28

Coast Mainline. That is part

15:30

of the public sector and has been

15:32

for a good few years since the

15:35

franchise collapsed. And the

15:37

reason why it is so good

15:39

is leadership. David Horn, the managing

15:41

director, really knows what he's doing.

15:43

So if nationalisation means that

15:45

the whole network looks like LNER, then

15:48

bring it on. Is there

15:50

anything, though, Nigel, in what you're reading

15:52

from Labour, from Shadow Transport Secretary Louise

15:54

Hague, that deals with the issues of

15:56

capacity on the network? Of course, we've

15:59

seen Rishi Sood Act, tear up

16:01

HS2 and goodness

16:03

only knows we will find out at some

16:05

point in the future how much money has

16:07

been wasted on that. But there was a

16:09

need, there was a necessity for an expansion

16:11

of capacity in that part of the world.

16:13

Is there anything in Labour's plan that seeks

16:15

to plug that gap? Well, there's nothing specific,

16:18

if you like, Neil, and certainly you put

16:20

your finger on what happens north of Birmingham

16:22

because within a few years that is going

16:24

to be rock solid and it's

16:26

going to be a nightmare. It's just

16:28

about nearly full now. The way out

16:30

of this for capacity is to

16:33

grow the railway. If you grow

16:35

a business, you generate money, you

16:37

can do stuff with, you generate

16:39

confidence in a government to support

16:41

it, and you generate confidence in

16:44

investors around it who want to

16:46

be part of it. And

16:49

that is something this government

16:51

has not done. So going

16:53

for growth is the thing

16:55

to do to take the break off, what's

16:58

needed to do for capacity. You

17:00

know, electrification can follow then, or,

17:02

you know, hybrid trains, battery electric

17:05

that help with emissions and everything

17:07

else. Once you've got a growing

17:09

railway, all is possible.

17:11

Do you think there's an opportunity here for

17:14

a bit of the romance that used to

17:17

be associated with this form of travel to

17:19

return to the railways? I remember, for example,

17:21

the first time that I

17:23

got on the then newly electrified line

17:26

between Air Station and Glasgow Central, I

17:28

remember train journeys that I have taken

17:31

in various parts of the world

17:33

just because the views that I had with

17:35

my nose pressed up against the glass,

17:38

it doesn't feel very romantic getting on

17:40

a train right now. I could not

17:42

agree more, Neil. People like trains.

17:46

It's the only form of transport that people stood at the

17:48

side of the line, wave at. You don't wave at lorries

17:50

and buses, do you? If

17:52

you look at LNER again, the service that

17:55

the on-train crews do is

17:57

just brilliant. You know, you've got

17:59

people walking up and down with

18:01

bin bags clearing up rubbish. You never

18:04

saw that in VR days. There's an

18:06

LNR-induced a new menu the other day

18:08

and it makes people feel a bit

18:11

special. First class passengers get it

18:13

complimentary, other people have to buy.

18:15

But that gloss you put around

18:17

a service, which never really went

18:19

around commuter services, but the long

18:21

distance services, there is every possibility

18:24

of creating that gloss and you get

18:26

that halo effect generally around the railway

18:28

then. But what people want to keep

18:30

going back to it, that's an extra.

18:32

They want a basic boring reliable safe

18:34

dependable railway at an affordable price. Nigel,

18:36

great to talk to you as always.

18:38

Thanks for joining us. Stay

18:41

where you are in a moment. We head

18:43

north, not on a train this time, to

18:45

ask why the SNP has ended its coalition

18:48

agreement with the Greens back soon. Welcome

18:54

back. The Scottish Government has

18:56

had a rough ride of late.

18:58

Ongoing corruption allegations, the abandoning of

19:00

key climate change targets and

19:03

now the SNP First Minister has

19:05

ended his party's relationship in government

19:07

with the Scottish Green Party by

19:09

terminating what's known as the

19:12

Butte House Agreement. Described by

19:14

the SNP and Scottish Greens as a

19:16

shared policy platform, by which the rest

19:19

of us can easily call a coalition

19:21

agreement, it meant the SNP could get

19:23

their policies through. Now, from

19:26

the use of services First Minister

19:28

of the minority government. Here

19:31

he is speaking a little earlier at Butte

19:33

House. When it comes to our

19:35

agreement with the Scottish Green Party, I

19:38

believe that the benefits have outweighed the

19:40

compromises. When I said that the agreement

19:42

was worth its weight in gold, I

19:44

meant it. However, it is

19:46

now my judgment that the

19:49

balance has shifted. The

19:51

Butte House Agreement was intended to

19:54

provide stability to the Scottish

19:56

Government and it has made possible a

19:59

number of achievements. But

20:01

it has served its purpose. It's

20:04

no longer guaranteeing a

20:06

stable arrangement in Parliament. The events

20:08

of recent days have made that

20:10

clear. And therefore,

20:13

after careful consideration, I

20:15

believe that going forward, it is

20:17

in the best interest of the people

20:19

of Scotland to pursue a

20:21

different arrangement. That

20:24

is why, following a discussion with my

20:26

Cabinet this morning, I have

20:28

formally notified Patrick Harvey and

20:30

Lorna Slater that I am terminating

20:32

the Dubuque House Agreement with immediate

20:35

effect. Our Scotland correspondent,

20:37

Conor Gillies, joins us from the Scottish

20:39

Parliament itself. Conor, what on earth is

20:41

going on? Why has the

20:43

SNP First Minister comes to use it?

20:45

Why has he ended what has obviously

20:47

become known as the Dubuque House Agreement?

20:50

In the last few days, there has

20:52

been a lot of discussion and debate

20:54

around the future of it because last

20:57

week here in Edinburgh, politicians,

20:59

the SNP and the Greens, ditched

21:01

one of their key climate targets,

21:04

essentially reducing greenhouse gas

21:06

emissions by 75% by the

21:08

end of this decade. That was no doubt

21:10

humiliating for the Greens. The only Greens in

21:12

government we think anywhere in the world where

21:14

they were part of watering down climate commitments.

21:17

And then, of course, there was the CAST

21:19

report where that was examining

21:21

the future potentially of gender identity

21:23

services for children, primarily

21:25

in England, but clearly there were ramifications

21:28

of what that science was saying north

21:30

of the border. The Greens pretty much

21:32

discredited a lot of what Dr CAST

21:34

had to say in that report. It

21:37

was awkward for the First Minister, but

21:39

nevertheless, Humza Yousif was defending Patrick Harvey,

21:41

was defending that cooperation with the Greens

21:43

and actually said it was worth its

21:45

weight in gold. Fast forward 48 hours

21:48

here this morning, we were all summoned

21:50

to Butte House and we are told

21:52

that PACT has run its course and

21:54

that critics would

21:56

suggest smacks of weak leadership from a

21:59

First Minister who's... Not in control and

22:01

pitched in to a decision that he really

22:03

didn't want to make A let me to

22:05

be a professional cynic here that for a

22:07

second corner mean isn't Isn't it just possible

22:10

that Hamza Yusuf is looking at the way

22:12

in which the Scottish Greens have been behaving

22:14

of lakes and look to the comments of

22:16

a cast for example and decided actually the

22:19

might be something of an electoral liability or

22:21

is is even simpler than that. no Green

22:23

members were gonna have a vote on to

22:25

be ice agreement where they i can't see

22:28

the membership of the green party's agreeing. To

22:30

stay in a coalition with a party

22:32

that had abandoned that's the key climate

22:34

change targets. Yeah that moment

22:36

last week where they abandon those key

22:39

targets was no dice a humiliation. It

22:41

fits pressure on the cool leaders of

22:43

the Green party heat in Scotland's a

22:45

galvanized their grassroots movement So kids Hamza

22:48

Yusuf see that icing on the wall

22:50

could be argued yes he cute where

22:52

his advisors saying you need to get

22:55

on the front seat here and look

22:57

like a man and controls in a

22:59

whatever he said in a los forty

23:01

hours what it was descending this that

23:04

cooperation agreement to the health is. You

23:06

turned on not to days because he knew

23:08

probably agree members were going to vote to

23:10

scrap and with your couple of hours ago

23:13

I was thinking of asking your question along

23:15

the lines of it isn't it ironic that

23:17

we have Hamza Yusuf calling on the opposition

23:19

parties to to what with them from you

23:22

look at the press statement that the old

23:24

to our enemy, the aftermath I thought that

23:26

was a little bit of a stretch for

23:29

him, but actually the situation has become rather

23:31

more complicated. Hasnat Scottish tories. Have

23:33

launched a bid for a new confidence vote

23:35

and Hamza Yusuf. yeah was

23:38

a bit of a might drop

23:40

moment during first minister's questions douglas

23:42

was the leader of the scottish

23:44

conservative is lodgings a no confidence

23:46

motions and scotland's first minister hamza

23:48

yusuf less remember this is known

23:50

snp governments in a minority they

23:53

don't have a majority support in

23:55

parliament they have really annoyed the

23:57

greens who are furious at this

23:59

to How will they vote?

24:01

Labour have confirmed to Sky News

24:03

they will support the Conservatives in

24:06

that motion of no confidence. The

24:08

Liberal Democrats are following the same.

24:10

There's been the defection of Ash

24:12

Regan, the one-time leadership candidate for

24:14

the SNP party when Nicola Sturgeon

24:17

stood down. She defected to Alex

24:19

Sammon's Alaba party last

24:21

year as well because she was angry

24:23

at the direction of the independence movement

24:25

under Hamza Yousif. How will she vote?

24:27

Will she be a kingmaker in these

24:30

discussions? Could we be facing a

24:32

situation where Hamza Yousif loses

24:34

that no confidence vote, at which point

24:36

the rules here at Holyrood state that

24:38

a new First Minister must be installed

24:40

within 28 days? If that's not

24:43

the case, then a Scottish election is

24:45

required. Could this have backfired for Hamza

24:47

Yousif who started the day trying to

24:50

take control? And now we have

24:52

a situation where he's out of office and

24:54

facing an election. It's often

24:56

been said of Hamza Yousif that he is

24:58

not quite the politician that Nicola Sturgeon was.

25:00

Shouldn't he have seen this coming?

25:03

Well, his opponents say he's a

25:05

lame duck leader who just 48

25:07

hours ago was defending to the

25:10

help this deal, this pact

25:12

with the Scottish Greens. Is there a

25:14

suggestion that he is pulling the strings

25:16

behind the scenes? Who knows?

25:18

Is Stephen Flynn, the SNP Westminster

25:20

leader, a man who has authority

25:23

here in the room? Well, that

25:25

was flatly denied by Hamza

25:27

Yousif himself. I asked him that question

25:29

earlier on about whether he had lost

25:31

control of his authority.

25:33

He said he made the decision

25:36

and that is the end of the matter.

25:39

Who knows what's happening behind the scenes? But

25:42

it's set to get very interesting in the

25:44

coming days. Certainly. It's Conor for now. Thanks

25:47

very much. We

25:49

are not yet at the point

25:51

where Hamza Yousif's fate is sealed.

25:53

But even if he survives any,

25:55

no confidence chicanery. His authority has

25:57

taken an awful knock. His political

25:59

skills... are under the microscope once again

26:02

and you'll have a hell of a time

26:04

getting anything passed without the Green Zone site.

26:07

Stephen Flynn, the SNP's leader in

26:09

Westminster and the man many

26:11

see as hums a useless replacement might just

26:14

have been keeping a close eye on Labour's

26:16

railway announcement because it might not

26:18

be long before he's taking the fast train to

26:20

Edinburgh. That's your look for this edition of

26:22

The Daily. We'll see you again soon.