Scotsman Politics: FMQs roundup
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00:00Hello, I'm Alistair Grant, the Scotsman's Political Editor, and I'm joined by Rachael
00:13Aimery, the Scotsman's Political Correspondent, and we're in the garden lobby of the Scottish
00:17Parliament just moments after the end of First Minister's Questions, in which Russell Finlay,
00:22the Scottish Tory leader, went in on this Auditor General report into the Scottish Government's
00:27finances, didn't he, Rachael? Very much making the point that the Auditor General had raised
00:30concerns about transparency, the Scottish Government's transparency, and kind of turning
00:35this into a wider political attack on the SNP Government. As Russell Finlay was saying,
00:42the chaotic SNP Government doesn't have a clue. John Swinney's saying that the Government's
00:46balanced the books. What did you make of that exchange?
00:49Yeah, clearly the Conservatives gearing up for the Scottish Budget, which is only going
00:53to go a few weeks away now. It comes on the 4th of December, and you can see both parties,
00:58both opposition parties, just manoeuvring and trying to get their narrative down nice
01:02and early. So that's clearly what Russell Finlay's tried to do here. Very interestingly
01:07though, it was quite an angry exchange at times. It has been quite calm since Russell
01:12Finlay became Scottish Conservative leader, but this one definitely was not at all. It
01:16was quite fiery. John Swinney in particular brought up a letter that had been sent between
01:22the two earlier this week about the Budget, and basically saying, how dare you come and
01:25question me on finances, basically. So it was quite a fiery exchange, which we haven't
01:29seen for quite a few weeks now in the First Minister's question, so it's quite interesting
01:32to see that.
01:33And I thought it was quite interesting as well that the Scottish Labour leader, Anna
01:36Sarwar, went in on an issue that you'd normally associate with the Tories, that's the early
01:40release of prisoners. People might remember that we've had, I think more than one actually,
01:46round of release of prisoners being released early to ease some of the overcrowding in
01:51Scotland's prisons. Anna Sarwar very much saying that the SNP is clearing up its own
01:56mess, making the point that the SNP has been in power in Scotland for 17 years, so they
02:01can't blame anyone else but themselves for this. He was pointing to a wider crisis in
02:05the courts, a crisis in legal aid, and saying that warnings have been ignored.
02:10Yes, this is normally something the Conservatives go in on, so quite unusual to see Labour trying
02:15to do this instead today. But yes, this is because an emergency bill is trying to go
02:20through Parliament now to try and release more prisoners in Scotland, to free up some
02:24space. It's been a long-going story for a few months now of just how little space there
02:29are in Scotland's prisons. But again, I think this is the Labour Party trying to set a narrative
02:34before the Budget, and also the long-term narrative of them ahead of the 2026 election,
02:39which has been going on for a few months now with the Labour Party. So again, I think that's
02:42sort of tactically trying to go for those two issues. But very interesting that it wasn't
02:47particularly finances or health that the Labour Party went on this week, so nicely something
02:51a bit different from Labour Party FMQs today.
02:53Yes, and again, very much political attacks on John Swinney heading back at the Labour
02:58Budget, what he calls austerity by the back door. But I wanted to raise as well Fergus
03:03Ewing, the SNP backbencher, a former SNP minister, raising the A9 and the ongoing problems. I
03:10wanted to talk about this because you have been doing a week-long series in the Scotsman
03:13that people can catch up with online as well as in today's paper. But essentially about
03:19the ongoing saga of the A9, the duelling of the A9, the delays we've seen around this,
03:23and Fergus Ewing making quite a powerful point today in the Scottish Parliament about the
03:27kind of rate of deaths, the kind of rate of danger that people are in on the A9. What
03:32did you make of that?
03:34Yes, of course, all this is on a backdrop of Tuesday, where there was another death
03:38on the A9, sadly, at the Ballinluig area, three more in hospital as well. The road was
03:43closed for about 10 hours, causing a lot of traffic chaos around the A9 area too. So that's
03:49sort of the context of this question that was asked today as well. Fergus Ewing was
03:55saying that those who are in a crash on a single carriageway are 10 times more likely
04:00to die or have a serious injury than those on a motorway, for example, and basically
04:05accusing the government of allowing Highlanders to be 10 times more susceptible to dying on
04:09this road because it's not duelled yet. No stranger to seeing Fergus Ewing getting quite
04:14angry about the A9 and questioning his own party on the A9, particularly on their record
04:18here. In fact, Fergus Ewing himself has helped us with this series. He's written his own
04:22column as well, the paper, which will be on our website, which viewers can see as well.
04:26So no stranger there. But yeah, again, another sort of quite angry exchange from the SNP
04:30backbencher towards his own party yet again.
04:32Yeah, I thought it was quite notable, just the emotion in Fergus Ewing's voice as he
04:37was asking that question. But I'm sure it's something that will run and run. And as I
04:40say, people can pick up a copy of the Scotsman, also go on to the Scotsman's website to see
04:45all the previous stories that Rachel's done on the A9. But that was First Minister's Questions
04:50in Holyrood on Thursday.