Dale catches up with deputy political editor David Bol
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00:00Hello and welcome to the Scotsman's Daily Video Bulletin for this Tuesday. My name's
00:05Dale Miller. I'm Deputy Editor of the Scotsman and I'm joined by our Deputy Political Editor
00:10David Boll. A bit of a mouthful on the deputies there, David, but we will crack into it. Front
00:16page of the Scotsman today, firstly. And that leads with an exclusive from yourself, David,
00:22SMP in huge U-turn over backing the deposit return scheme without glass. I know you interviewed
00:29Gillian Martin ahead of her COP29 speech which is taking place today. That's another story
00:35that's up on Scotsman.com from David. Effectively saying that now the SMP and the Scottish Government
00:42will press ahead with a DRS scheme linked up with the UK Government without glass. That's
00:49a significant change in position from the one outlined by Lorna Slater. We know there's
00:54an ongoing legal case linked to DRS as well as BIFA seeks compensation. So there is plenty
01:01to play out here. You can read all of those stories at Scotsman.com. Just head to the
01:06politics tab in the navigation bar for all the very latest from David. David, we're going
01:11to get to COP29 and that DRS story, but it's hard to avoid Stephen Flynn this morning who
01:17has announced effectively that he's running for election in 2026. Yeah, that's right. I mean,
01:25it won't come as a huge surprise. We'd heard sort of feelers that he was maybe thinking about a
01:30switch to Holyrood. He's a very ambitious leader. We know how kind of it went down with him and in
01:36Blackford at Westminster. So it won't come as a great show at the moment. The rules were changed
01:43by the SNP. So you couldn't have a double jobber. Obviously, the SNP has been quite critical of
01:49Douglas Ross for sitting in Westminster and Holyrood. So currently that is the case. But the
01:56ruling board of the SNP will kind of look at this ahead of 2026, which could open the door for
02:02Stephen Flynn to sit in both houses. Obviously, we've just had a Westminster election. So he's
02:07just started a new term at Westminster. But he's obviously wanting to at least give him a chance of
02:14making that switch to Holyrood and maybe fancies himself as a future leader of the SNP.
02:21David, I think even the cynics amongst us would look at this and say it certainly gets the ducks
02:29lined up so that he could bid for the leadership. It was interesting. He spoke about backing John
02:33Swinney and the fact he sees John Swinney as the leader for, I think he referenced, many years to
02:38come. But it's fair to say that if there was a leadership discussion to take place around 2026,
02:47whether it was pre or post election, that he is getting himself in the right position, isn't it?
02:53Yeah, so basically, if John Swinney does step down after 2026, we don't know what's going to happen
02:58yet. There's a long way to go. But if Stephen Flynn wanted to be considered for that, he would have to at
03:04least be in Holyrood. So getting elected to Holyrood is his kind of first step he'd need to tick off. So
03:11he is basically sort of planning ahead. And even if it is down the line, he becomes leader or even intends
03:16to be leader. He'll need to be in Holyrood to realistically be the leader. So this is his first
03:21move. The deadline for sort of SNP candidates to put themselves forward for Holyrood was yesterday,
03:27which is why he's kind of had to come out and say that he's applied for it, essentially. Otherwise, he
03:34kind of would have left it too late and he'd have been ruled out. We don't get by-elections at Holyrood
03:38like we do at Westminster. So the only opportunity really for him to get himself up to Holyrood is that
03:442026 election.
03:46David, just lastly, do you think Stephen Flynn has that level of support within the party that he could
03:54consider a leadership bid down the track? Obviously, he's in charge of the Westminster group, but do you
03:58think he would have the wider support?
04:01Yeah, I don't see why not. He seems to be a popular guy. He's kind of been quite impressive as Westminster
04:08leader, I think. He's taken quite a sensible approach and helped the SNP's reputation down there, I guess. It's
04:15very difficult for him now to kind of have a stamp and a high profile, given they don't have many MPs and he
04:23rarely gets questions at PMQs. So I think he would be quite popular. We don't know what the SNP is going to
04:29look like after John Swinney, if even that happens anytime soon, but Kate Forbes would be kind of in line
04:36for it, given she's Deputy First Minister. She's kind of put herself in the pole position to succeed John
04:43Swinney. But I think Stephen Flynn would have a lot of support from SNP members anyway, and it would just have
04:50to wait and see whether he gets enough support from his colleagues that would back him in any leadership bid in
04:55the future.
04:56David, on the DRS, this story took many twists and turns over a number of years. Can you just talk to someone that's
05:04not familiar with all those turns? Can you talk them through why this is a U-turn in terms of what Gillian Martin's
05:11outlined?
05:12Yeah, so it is a bit of a saga, like you said. But essentially, Scotland was meant to roll out its own DRS
05:19before the UK government, before any other government. That was the plan. And they had included Glass in it, which, to
05:26be fair to the Scottish government, the UK government had agreed with initially, this is going years back, but had
05:31changed its mind and thought Glass should be excluded. And there's a bit of a standoff between Westminster and
05:36Holyrood. Surprise, surprise. And basically, one of the reasons it got shelved was because of that sort of Glass
05:44fighting point, really. And Lorna Slater, as you said, was adamant that it couldn't go ahead without Glass. It would
05:50make it commercially unviable, essentially. But Gillian Martin, I spoke to her, and she's got quite a pragmatic
05:58approach to net zero, which may be refreshing for a lot of people just wanting to get things done, not so driven by
06:04ideology, as some of her colleagues and some of the Greens maybe were. And basically said, well, if we get a DRS up and
06:10running without Glass, then fine, fine by me. Let's just get it. It's already delayed. Let's just get it working. And
06:17then maybe we could add Glass sort of down the line. But obviously, we've had all these delays and this kind of big
06:23row at Westminster because of Glass being included. So opposition parties have obviously seized on this and
06:29thinking, this is a huge U-turn. Why couldn't we have just avoided some of this at the start? And it wasn't as
06:34simple as that, because the UK government under Alistair Jack did kind of put up barriers to try and politicise the
06:40row. So I think both sides need to take responsibility for why it's been kind of kicked into the long grass. But
06:47obviously, if Glass hadn't been an issue, if the Scottish government had accepted this way back, then maybe we'd have
06:53been in a much better position.
06:57You can read that story from David at Scotsman.com. It is a busy day on the politics front. We have COP29 taking
07:03place. Gillian Martin giving a speech. You can read some of what she had to say or planned to say, effectively, in that
07:09speech at our website. Kirsten Kirstahm is in Azerbaijan as well for COP29. We've also got the first day of a judicial
07:19review at the Scottish Court of Session. This is around the Jackdaw and Rosebank oil fields as well. So plenty
07:27happening on top of the likelihood of hearing more from Stephen Flynn later today. Thank you for joining us, David.
07:34Thanks to everyone at home. And please go out and buy a copy of this Scotsman tomorrow.