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Humza Yousaf

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2024-02-05
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2024-02-05
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  1. “It's a hope he smiles to have their penion polls. No, listen, thanks so much. I really enjoyed it and best wishes to you and of course all your listeners.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  2. “Yes, in accordance with the club, but my general impression has been look, if people want to show solidarity by weaving flags, we should let them just wave flags. But it's up to the club what it decides to do. It's an internal matter for the club and the management and the board of the club just to me people waving flags is just of such little importance.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  3. “Stop them. We got a nine in a row. So grew up with them just thrashing us year after year after year and George Alberts with that killer left foot and Andy Gorham continuing to break Celtic hearts for years and years and then came a kind of golden age for Celtic thereafter and the player that I had in my bedroom always was Henrik Larson and still to this day I would quite like to meet at some point so Henrik if you're listening to the podcast Scotland, I would love a maid for you. In terms of the kind of waving of flags, to me, first of all, look, it's barely the most important issue in the important.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  4. “So this thing about all Scottish politicians have to be party thistle fans so that you don't confess your love for Rangers or Celtic. You're right, it's a thing. But I think it's a bit daft. I mean, look, everybody knows I'd be a Celtic fan since I was about six years old, so I somehow pretend that I'm no longer a Celtic fan would be a bit ridiculous. I think people prefer their politicians to be just human beings. Look, I've at times had to criticise Celtic. I was Justice Secretary, for example. There was times where I had to be critical of the club, for example, during COVID and so on. So there was, you know, you've got to just kind of remove whatever affiliation you've got with your club when you're doing the job. In terms of being Celtic fan, though, I mean, my late uncle sadly passed away quite young pancreatic cancer, but he took me to my first ever Celtic game and just fell in love with the club. And I grew up watching the club getting thrashed by Rangers. They almost got 10 in a row.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  5. “I feel like football too, don't you? I love that clip of you in the stands at Burnley from many years ago practically heathering the ball. What was the game again?”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  6. “Hard for him not to be there. Yeah, look, my views are known by everybody, including, I suspect His Majesty, who, by the way, holds in great respect. Look, I have a duty to do. I'm meant to be the first minister for everybody in Scotland. It would have been outrageous if I had not been at the coronation. I take my job very seriously, whether it's attending the coronation or having audiences with the king, who I have to say, when it comes to the big issues of the day, and you've mentioned climate change, has been far ahead of most politicians for a number of years. And he and I, you know, I won't disclose what you talk about, obviously in our private audiences, but there's a number of issues I can respect him for, climate change being one of them. I think when it comes to the issue of community cohesion, which we desperately need, particularly given some of the ripples of what's happening in the Middle East, I think he's got an important role to play in bringing communities together. And I see he's already done some of that, which I commend. The First Minister is a duty and whatever comes with that duty, I do to the best of my ability.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  7. “Cycles of violence that you and I have seen throughout the entire course of our lives. And I do believe that until you have meaningful steps towards a Palestinian state, then you're never ever going to see true peace in that region.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  8. “Look, I just, if he's trying to do it behind the scenes, I've just not seen the material effect of it. What has been the material effect or impact? I've not seen levels of restraint from the Israeli government. If this is restraint from the Israeli government, then my goodness, I wouldn't like to see what unrestrained looks like. So some people have made this argument to me in the past that we're doing things behind the scenes. And I believe that our conversations going on behind the scenes, I'm afraid there has to come a point where you go, look, they're just not listening to us and we have to begin to exert some public pressure. And the fact that the UK and others are not doing that, I think is a failure of leadership. And as I say, I just don't know how much more worse the situation has to get. And of course, the worry for many of us who are observing this is, look, there's the immediate issue. We've got to try to stop the violence, get aid into people who desperately need it, rebuild Gaza. I think the worrying thing is how do you stop these?”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  9. “I think those who have still refused to call for an immediate ceasefire will be seen to be in the wrong side of history on this issue. I just can't understand it. Particularly those that have a close relationship, either are able to have the ear of the Israeli government or indeed, for example, Qatar, which we know is influential. With Hamas, every single person that is in that trusted position has to be calling for an immediate ceasefire and doing everything they can behind the scenes to stop the violence. I've never seen this level of death and destruction that has killed so many innocent men, women and particularly children. And yet the word ceasefire has somehow become almost a dirty word.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  10. “He's still there, Muhammad's still there, still working in hospital. Redi Khan separated from his family actually, but he's still there. And so, you know, that's the kind of things that they would have to deal with day to day. They were living with bottles of dirty salty water. And they really, I mean, it was always difficult, but the real difficulty came when the North was evacuated. So all of the extended cousins and aunties and uncles that were in the north. So in this house, where there was usually 10 of them suddenly had 100 people in this house. So I think I say it's indescribable. I'm trying to describe what they've told me. I'll never forget, actually, that, so they arrive back on Bonfarnight. They go back to the UK and obviously pick them up from the airport and went to the house and spent time with them in the evening. And I remember my father-in-law was chatting to a relative as he'd come at the door and a firework went off and he jumped and absolutely jumped and I thought this is going to take you some amount of time I think to recover.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  11. “They say the house was 50, 60, 70 metres away, eight year old girl from that blast landed outside their house and their spine, they say she can't move. She's conscious, but she can't move. We don't know what to do. We said, well, come Muhammad, that's my wife's brother. He's a doctor. He's still there.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  12. “What did So you have to imagine every single day they were saying that there was just a constant buzz of drones, a constant every single moment every single day. So you're always on edge immediately because you don't know if there's going to be a strike or not. And then, of course, you would get strikes. And there's one time they phoned me at, I had just done my conference speech, and it was a couple of hours later, and my mother-in-law phoned me to say they'd been hit. The house had been hit. And she said there's smoke everywhere, windows have all been blasted, smashed, doors blasted off the hinges. We've been hit. I don't know who's alive, who's not. And I said, look, mum, just take a breather. Let's try to assess the situation. I don't think you've not been hit. Transparently they hadn't, but somebody had been hit nearby. And my mother-in-law tells me that she then, after she phoned back, said, look, everybody's okay. It's not us. But there's an eight-year-old girl from an...”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  13. “No, she was in Dead Belovic. She's in between Gaza City and Kanye is kind of center of Gaza. And the family had been going. I mean, Nadia had gone every year to Gaza before the blockade and then post the blockade. They weren't able to get in often. But essentially my father-in-law wanted to go see his 93-year-old mother. She had caught COVID a number of months back and she's pretty frail and obviously continues to be very, very frail. So you effectively wanted to go see her for one last time. And the 7th of October happened. And every day for the four weeks that they were trapped in there was unbelievably intense getting messages and calls when we thought they were hit and there was times when they phoned me to say their goodbyes. My mother-in-law telling me to take care of her girls.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  14. “I think it was the most difficult few weeks of our lives, and I'll never forget waking up that morning. And seeing the messages from Nadia's mum, and I think once we understood what had happened on the 7th of October, those abhorrent terror attacks that took place and the extent of them, we knew the retribution would be and the retaliation would be huge.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  15. “Of course I don't know if that's a question, a statement of the obvious, but yeah, no, of course not. I mean, I was First Minister for a couple of weeks and I remember being elected and all the kind of ceremony and pomp that goes with becoming First Minister. And we had a couple of weeks of recess Easter recess coming up. And yep, this was the moment going to be able to dominate the newest coverage. There'll be no parliamentary. You go out, you set out what it is you stand for, who sums the use of, what is you going to try to advocate for. And the second day, Peter gets arrested. You know, that's my life for the next. That's what I mean about every time you're something. Yeah, I agree. So it has been difficult and it's challenging. But also I try to remind myself of this every day, I never lose sight of the fact that leading your country is the greatest honour of anybody's life. And not many people at all get the opportunity. And it's kind of like being the captain of the football team, right? I mean, it's your home country. It's a country you love. It's the country you're raising your kids on and you get to lead it. And every single day for all the...”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  16. “I think in hindsight, you could absolutely reflect on that and say, look, should that have been the case? I think nobody really questioned it because we didn't see it, there was no red flags, there was nothing that seemed to cause us any issues, concerns that were raised at the time. And obviously I can't comment on a live police investigation that will go in the way that it's going to go and conclude in the way it's going to conclude. But ultimately, you know, the party was doing well, was winning under Peter Nicola. And”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  17. “Nikola, I've just got such a deep affection for and always well. She to me is somebody who, first of all, I've always been close to Nicola and her first election that she ever still, one of the first elections she ever stood for against Mohammed Sawar, actually. My dad's office in Pollock Shields in Glasgow South Side. The basement was her election base. I've known Nicola since I was a young kid. So look, I've always had that deep affection for Nikola. I worry about her to an extent as well. I mean, she's dealing with a lot, as we know about. And if I'm really sad about how there's certain elements who are seeking to try to tarnish our reputation, I think about COVID in particular, I work closely with Nicola throughout the years of the pandemic. And I can tell you what, nobody in the Scottish Government is saying we got everything right, you know, far from certain we made mistakes.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  18. “No, I mean, kind of briefly shook hands and exchanged pleasantries during Winnie Ewing's funeral. Look, I haven't got my way only because I haven't seen any evidence from either Alex nor the party that he leads that they are interested in anything other than giving the SNP a kicking. And if you believe in independence, giving the largest vehicle that's driving forward independence a kicking every single day and through every single press release doesn't make sense to me, it speaks to me to a very ulterior motive.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  19. “I don't again, it would be hard for me to answer for Alex and what his motivations are. It feels difficult to think that there's anything other than to try to replace the S&P, which is never going to happen. But I don't know, because Alex, I feel, could have actually played a role as elder statesman, actually given advice, gone off to do whatever he wanted to do.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  20. “Down in a relationship with Alex is a matter of not just regret, but I feel quite hurt about it all and how it's all transpired. Somebody I looked up to now spends a fair bit of his time Laying the boot into the SNP and yeah, trying to damage me personally or the SNP and frankly the cause that we both love and I do believe Alex”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  21. “Yeah, I don't know about it. It'd be hard to do about her faith. Look, Alex is somebody I looked up to. He was the reason I joined the party. I remember watching his speech about the Iraq war. And I heard him speaking in the House of Commons. And my thought, my dad was the SMP, and it was always probably my natural kind of inclination was towards the S&P. That was the moment I thought, yeah, I want to join that party. And Alex gave me my first job as a minister. Not only that, encouraged me. I mean, you mentioned my journey into politics. We had a bid-in for question time. We didn't get very often bids into question time. We didn't have many MPs at a time, a handful of MPs. And obviously the party and government for a few years at that point. And there I was as a young, I think 26 year old, and he said, you're going on question time. I said, me? They said, yeah, tell Hamzai's going on. You'll be absolutely fine. And, you know, it went fine and went well, actually. So he gave me a lot of opportunity over the years. And so actually I feel if I'm honest with you, the break.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  22. “Talk to you on this podcast in detail about what I think we can do, not just to help productivity, to boost economic growth, because I think economic growth is hugely important for a purpose. And that purpose is to reinvest back into our public services and to help establish those targeted measures to reduce poverty because poverty is still far too endemic right across the UK, including, of course, here in Scotland. So look, I can lay out in huge amounts of detail some of our plans around productivity if you want to do another episode, we can go just on our economic plans. But I suppose I go back to the point I made Alistair, which is, look, I'm far more comfortable talking about policy. A lot of the difficulty I think my party is facing the last 10 months is it's issues that are not to do with policy that have been distracting us and causing us some challenge.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  23. “Productivity, of course, undoubtedly is linked to skills. We just had a skills review at a number of skills reviews which we're implementing. Actually, again, when I come back to this whole point of my trip to London, for example, the entire reason why we're trying to attract, or one of the big incentives to attract investment into Scotland is that ecosystem that exists. So if you look at some of the work that's been done by Sandy Begby, well-known Scottish financial enterprise, it talks about that ecosystem. Scotland's advantage as a small country means that you can bring industry, higher education, further education and government together in order to try to deal with some of these skills issues and grow your own, make sure you've got the right workforce for the industry of the future. What we've also said, and this is something the Scottish Government under the SNP, I don't think I said before this budget, is we're going to have to look at the size of the public sector in Scotland. We're going to have to think about how we begin to make efficiencies and reduce the size and the scale of the public sector. So look, I can...”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  24. “I don't doubt that would have a significant impact on our economy, including in terms of productivity. I don't doubt it for a minute. I mean, again, the meetings that I've had throughout the entire course of yesterday with some of the biggest investors in the world, many of them have a footprint in Scotland already or BlackRock's JP Morgan's, Morgan Stanleys, Buckley's, all big investors globally and all of them have an interest in investing in Scotland due to the climate renewable potential or difficulty and there's things that the Scottish Government absolutely can do. We have some recommendations from an investor panel, but ultimately the key message that keeps coming back is, well, look, why would we invest in the UK when we're getting subsidy incentives in the United States on European capitals? I'm curious why Rory's making the fence.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  25. “It could often be by the fact that we don't have, for example, if I took the example of transitioning to net zero, the way we unlock that is largely actually how the United States and Europe are doing it. You need to be able to compete not with the quantum of the Inflation Reduction Act or the European Green Deal Investment Partnership plan. What you're going to have to do is put some sort of subsidy up like actually the Labour Party seem to be suggesting and now rolling back on to unlock that investment. Most of my meetings in London.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  26. “I'm accepting that, by the way. I'm not disagreeing with you. It's far too low than it should be. And I go back to my point or fiscal monetary lever is largely controlled. By the UK. But look, I accept also. You”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  27. “Increased at a faster rate than the rest of UK in the last decade, but it's still far too low. It's nowhere near where we need it to be. And for me,”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  28. “So I just had an hour speech on this at Clansgo University on my vision for industrial policy, and a lot of it is centered on the huge potential we've got from the transition to net zero.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  29. “No, no. He said, well, let's take the vote and get the guys a ceasefire. It's a perfect example. Michael Shank said, I'll stand up for Scotland. His leader in Scotland, Anas, supported a ceasefire. What did Michael Shanks do? Didn't vote for a ceasefire because what he did was what Keer Starmer told him to do. And that is what you'll get with Labour MPs or guest MP MPs who whether you like our policies sometimes don't like our policies, agree with some of them, don't agree with all of them. We always bang the drum for Scotland. Stephen Flynn does it every single week. Scotland, Scotland, Scotland. And that's what you get with SNPMPs.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  30. “He's going to get a massive swing. This is going to be the collapse of the Conservative Party, potentially even an existential threat. I hope it's an existential threat, given the damage that they've caused this country. They are going to get routed up and down the country. And they deserve it. This is not a normal election. In fact, if you go back and look over the decades of how many times Scotland has influenced a general election, you can count it on, you don't even need your one hand to count it on. And that was when we had, by the way, way more seats than we have at the moment. So again, let's not pretend otherwise. Of course, and every vote does count. This is my point, is that Scotland's votes do count. Now Scotland could end up sending a whole raft of Labour MPs who will do nothing other than stand up for Keir Stammer, Michael Shanks for other Glenn MPs, a classic example.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  31. “Scotland, that's a pretty strong motivation for a lot of people. And that's why I think it's important to say, and I'll say this, look, actually, Kirstama is going to be the next PM. I think anybody can tell me or pretend that won't be the case. In Scotland, we've got an opportunity to vote for a party that you believe in, a party that values aligns with yours. And actually, even if you don't agree with all of our policies, when the SNP is well represented in Westminster, we make sure that Scotland's voice is heard.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  32. “And look at the party, and I know the party because I've been a son of this party for as long as I can remember. They do not like yellow and yellow fire, you know, the party just does not like that and did not appreciate that. So look, look, Kate and I, you know, we were messaging last night, actually, get along very well, water under a bridge after a leadership contest. In terms of your more general question around the kind of natural political cycle and political gravity that we all have to face, look, my job is to try to fight against that. And I'm not going to pretend at all that it's going to be easy, I think, this general election. It will be a challenge for the SNP. My intention is to make sure in Scotland we're the largest party and we win that general election, but we're facing a challenge. And I don't think it's because there's a huge enthusiasm to vote for Keir Starmer. I don't think the people really know what it is he stands for or what his policies are. There is just a strong motivation to get rid of that shower down in Westminster.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  33. “To do all those things briefly. I think in an election contest, all of us will say things that we regret and we think about how we should have phrased it and not phrased it. And I think that, I mean, I'm not sure if Kate does, you can probably ask her the question, but whether she does, I suspect she probably does because in effect that was the moment I think she lost leadership campaign.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  34. “One big policy area of difference that Labour has is the green prosperity fund, and they seem to be rolling back in that and talk that even by the time this podcast goes out, it might well be in the dustbin. So I'm very comfortable talking about policy and want it to be in the policy. And my biggest challenge to be frank in the last 10 months has been the fact that there's issues that are out with my control that have undoubtedly dominated and therefore we've not been able to talk as about policy as much as I would like.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  35. “Suppose my point in raising that was so you could you could challenge back and forth I'm much more comfortable In a policy space and talking in a policy space. And that's why when it comes to general election, yeah, I think it's going to be a challenge. We're going to face our biggest challenge in comparison to general elections over the last decade. They'll have to say before 2014, of course, general elections were always a difficult election for the SNP. But for the last decade, this will probably be the most difficult one in the decade. But as much as we can talk about policy, because I think there's a huge policy vacuum at the moment. I don't see much difference between what the Conservatives are proposing, what Labour are proposing.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  36. “More young people from the poorest and more deprived areas going to university than ever before is pretty good. Our health service facing challenge for sure still continues to be.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  37. “I also disagree with your premise. That's not what we normally do. There's challenges, of course, because Westminster still controls largely the economic levers. The biggest challenge that everybody is facing in the country, whether it's in Scotland, England, Northern Ireland or Wales is cost of living crisis. I'm afraid you can try as much as you want, but that is not created by the Scottish Government and the cost of living crisis lands very much at the door of a Conservative Party that is imposed 13 and a half years of austerity and took a torpedo to the economy through the mini-budget. So look, I accept the point that the Scottish Government, of course, has responsibility for a number of devolved areas. Let me just challenge back in every single policy area, you're going to have some level of challenge, but we can equally point to where we've made significant, significant progress, whether it's education and reducing the attainment gap, for example.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  38. “Spain have said unequivocally again in fairness of previous administration at a time, but the Conservative Prime Minister at a time said, look, we're not going to look to veto Scotland. And of course the situation in Scotland we say is an internal issue here with the UK and the situation in Catalonia is an internal situation for the Spanish government to have to deal with. I'm not saying to you and haven't said throughout the course of this interview, by the way, there aren't going to have to be challenges. We're going to have to work our way through. Ultimately, though having worked through those challenges, and I believe we absolutely can, the prize is great. The prize is that we get to make decisions for ourselves. But not only that, just look at countries that are similar size to Scotland. Look at Ireland, for example, across the water, look at your Norway's and your Denmarks, and you can see countries similar size to Scotland, similar population to Scotland, and having done incredibly well and continue to do incredibly well, and actually have”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

  39. “Absolutely. San Francisco, of course, are important. The point is that we're not going into the European Union, and again, I accept there's got to be an application process. We're not going into the European Union completely cold. We have been, of course, a member of the European Union for many, many decades. Now, I accept there's got to be an application process. Do I think that the application process, would Europe look to speed that up? Would we be able to speed up? I would certainly hope so, given we've been able to align with the Aqua Communitaire for many, many decades across many chapters. Now, that's got to be a conversation that's got to take place with the European Union. But I'm not trying to sell the point that somehow everything will be okay.”

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  40. “We're not saying we can get straight back into it. We're seeing again, if you read the paper, which I'm going to send you after this, which says it's an application process, and Scotland would have to apply to be upcoming member states.”

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  41. “Let's be upfront about it, and honest about it, let's not pretend that, and I think people rather appreciate the honesty, and that's why the paper goes into the detail and says the prizes are market seven times the size of the UK, tariff-free debt.”

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  42. “Yes, but how you deal with them, and we've got papers on many of these issues, some of them are still to come, for example, further papers on pensions and so on, is that we're upfront and honest about it. So our paper on the EU doesn't pretend that there's not going to have to be some kind of light touch customs checks for some goods coming across the border between England and Scotland. The prize, of course, we say is that Scotland would then be part of a single market that's seven times the size of the UK and, by the way, we'd have a department within the Scottish Government that effectively would do the initial paperwork for you. Can I just deal with the light touch customs?”

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  43. “I disagree because we've spent a fair period of time, and particularly since I've been first minister, publishing a whole series of papers. Now, I'm not expecting the mass populace to read 50 pages of what would happen if we end up a member of European Union, what would happen with our borders, custom checks, currency, pensions. But we've had people.”

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  44. “The poor man of Northwest Europe. And you look at countries, whether it's Norway, whether it's Ireland, whether it's Denmark, Austria, and you look at their levels of productivity higher than ours. You look at their national income per head, higher than ours, you look at their levels of inequality, lower than ours. So you take my word for it at all, resolution foundation, well-respected think tank, typical household in the UK, £8,300 better off if we had the same level or similar levels of productivity and similar levels of inequality. The premise of the Independence campaign is not vote for independence. And by the way, everything will be fine, everything will be okay, it's let's actually make the decisions for ourselves.”

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  45. “Well, look at the UK for me, again, Brexit's a perfect example. I think there's a conspiracy of silence around Brexit from Westminster politicians. Nobody is talking about it, and we will be and are talking about it.”

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  46. “So I think, look, it's an interesting analysis analogy. That would be true if the premise of the independence campaign was that with independence we'll have rivers of milk and honey and mana will fall from the sky. That's not the premise of the independence campaign. The independence campaign recognizes and the independence movement recognizes that, by the way, you're still going to have problems and challenges. Some of those will be really difficult problems and challenges, global financial crash. Scotland wouldn't be immune to that. We would still have to face those challenges. The difference with independence is you would have the economic, monetary, fiscal levers in your hands to be able to adjust to those shocks. And also that you wouldn't have, and Brexit's a great example, you wouldn't have imposed upon you policies that create such a deep-rooted economic self-harm as Brexit did. You wouldn't have them imposed upon you, particularly when your population didn't vote for it. So it's not a, look, by the way, you know, rose tinted glasses, everything is fine with independence.”

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  47. “No, I just think the SP brand is so strong and it's known, it's so recognized, I think, to make that kind of change. I mean, party is going to be, what, 90 years old this year? I actually share a birthday with a party on 7th of April. So it's going to be 98 years old. I think the brand is so strong. And as I say, I don't think there's much confusion about our socially progressive values.”

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  48. “I've never had anybody from a kind of far right nationalist party attempt to reach out to us because our policies are pretty self-evident. We're pro-migration, our social policies are progressive into the left and now we're led by a Muslim. I mean, there's not really much dubiety about the progressive nature of our party. But nationalism has uncomfortable connotations. There's no getting away from it. But it's never been an issue practically in reality.”

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  49. “Such a strong brand, I think, is the honest answer. But also, having done lots of international engagement, Minister for External Affairs for a number of years and obviously First Minister and other ministerial portfolios, nobody's really ever sat me down and been confused about the fact that we're a centre-left progressive party. I mean, everybody's understood it. Nobody's ever said, oh, by the way, what kind of nationalist are you?”

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  50. “Yeah, well, I think that was important for me to do, particularly given the personal circumstances I was enduring, but I wanted our Jewish community who I've grown up with, and I mentioned I grew up in Newton Merns, it has the largest Jewish community in Scotland, still does to this day. You mentioned Hutchie Grammar School. It's got the largest Jewish population of any school in Scotland. So I grew up amongst that community and have an enormous love and affection for that community. And I didn't want them to feel, because of my personal circumstances, that I wasn't feeling their grief because they are grieving and for their loved ones, for their loss, for their country. And I think it was an important signal for me to be there.”

    2024-02-05 · The Rest Is Politics: Leading · 58. Humza Yousaf, First Minister of Scotland: Nicola Sturgeon, independence, and his family's escape from Gaza · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source