for caithness sutherland and easter ross. chris, what are you going to say? let's go for tipsy. very chris mason word for drunk! 12 times since 1980, including ed balls injune 2014, where he talks about the then education secretary perhaps being tipsy when he'd done an interview in the times. anyway, we're going to get on with a very sober episode, although it'll still be fun of newscast. newscast from the bbc. hello, it's adam in the studio. and it's chris at westminster. and it'sjames in glasgow. and i love we've got full sartorial line—up here. james, you've gone tie, no jacket. chris, you've gone jacket, no tie. i've gone for neither jacket nor tie. that's the sort of impartiality you'll get in our election coverage. right, james, the reason we've summoned you today is because actually, there's been quite a lot of activity in scotland for the election the last few days. on the first day of full

campaigning, rishi sunak made it one of his stops on his whistle stop tour of the uk and today, the labour leader keir starmer started off his day there. what did you make of what he was saying and what he was doing? yes, and i think this is a signal, adam, of things to come, isn't it? because there's been a lot of discussion about whether in this election, in particular the route to number ten might run through scotland, and in particular for sir keir, might run along the river clyde here in glasgow and the river clyde. in fact, that is it, isn't it? if you're watching, if you're not watching, there's a river behind me. yeah, and what is why is that? well, because about a decade ago, there was a big shift, a big, big shift in support from labour to the snp.

labour for decades and decades would send dozens of mps from scotland to westminster at every election in the 2019 general election. how many mps did they return from scotland? one — one. so keir starmer hopes to change that and there's some signs that he's right to be hopeful. if you look at the polls, which suggests that some of that snp support has been fading away in some of the labour support has been building back up. so that's why he's here to try to capitalise on that and in particular to try to win seats here in glasgow. rishi sunak — well, the conservatives have six seats in scotland at present, and i should say that some of them are not exactly the same as they were last time because there have been boundary changes, but nonetheless, they have six seats. and actually this might be one part of the uk where pollsters suggest the tories might not find their support slipping at this election. obviously, it's not a matter for the pollsters, it's a matter for voters at the end of the day, but particularly in the north east of scotland and then down in the south of scotland, where those conservative seats are in this country, the tories are pretty hopeful that they might hang on to them, maybe even hopeful that they'll add a seat.

and why is that, james? why do you think there's that different dynamic in scotland than perhaps the polls might suggest elsewhere in the uk? i think there's two reasons. one, the union, the fact that the constitution and some of those areas particularly is still in play, particularly down on the border with england. and two, the issue of oil and gas in the north—east and who is best placed to protect aberdeen and its status as the oil capital of europe at the same time as managing the transition towards renewable energy. now, it's not for me to say whether or not the tories actually are the authentic voice on either of those matters, but clearly they hope they can be. other parties disagree, obviously. james, it's so interesting that point about oil and gas workers because one of labour's big pledges is about is about green energy and decarbonising the energy sector by 2030. energy sector by 2030 — in other words, taking the fossil fuels out of our electricity generation from our power stations. the conservatives attack that

as an unrealistic goal that might cost a lot of tax taxpayers money to get there. at least that's what the tory attack is kind of uk—wide. but in scotland specificallym they say that's a labour threat but in scotland specifically, they say that's a labour threat tojobs in places like aberdeen where people work in the oil and gas industry in their droves. yes, and then there's an argument about the snp's policy and the snp also, adam, treading a really fine line. i mean, oil in some ways was the fuel that drove the rise. was the fuel that drove the rise in scottish nationalism way back in the '605 and into the 705 — this idea that in the famous campaign phrase of the snp, it's scotland's oil, and that if scotland had control over those resources, it could have been, as the snp will tell you until they're blue in the face. it could have been like norway, if scotland has had control and had built up its own oil reserve — it didn't. so it didn't.

so, whether or not they're right doesn't matter any more. but the issue still resonates and the snp are still pulled in both directions on that subject. and chris, we got such a good reminder of devolution and where power lies. when you were at that keir starmer event a few days ago where he unveiled his 6/1 steps of what labour government would do to achieve their five missions. yeah, absolutely. you know, the nature of a devolved uk now is that many of the levers of domestic political change should a government seek to change things. if you're sitting in westminster, those levers will only reach the borders of england and there will be decisions taken in those policy areas. in edinburgh for scotland, in cardiff for wales, and indeed then in belfast for northern ireland. and indeed, then in belfast for northern ireland — not that the powers of those three

devolved institutions are identical. but, yeah, you do get a sense of that all of the time and, and you get curious uses of words like country, nation and state, which all have particular definitions, but which are used often interchangeably, as if they all mean the same thing by politicians on occasion. and talking about constitutional affairs, obviously, james, the piece that you wrote about the snp's election launch important policy things. but the thing i'll really remember is just the bit you wrote with the start saying, "oh, this election really took them "by surprise, including the snp's press officers who were running "around quite a lot to make the event actually happen." oh, my goodness. it was actual... it was quite chaotic, i must say, because this was in was in the grass market, which if anyone is familiar with edinburgh, it's right in the heart of edinburgh down underneath the castle, ancient part of the city or famous old part of the city anyway. and we had so little

notice, so little notice. how little? just over an hour i think of the venue. anyway, it's not really fair to go into that... well, maybe it is fair to go into the details, but i would say before i do that, i've had tussles with other press officers, from other parties. of course. but on this occasion, i said to them, "listen, it's going to be a very long six weeks if we get "an hour's notice. " we've got a lot of resourcing issues with cameras all over the place. we've got people up and the highlands covering the prime minister. you have to help us out. yeah _ and they were running in as i was almost as i was seeing this with a yellow lectern running in, passed me with the lectern for the event and then they couldn't sort out the sound in time for the start of it. i mean, i think probably it took in the end when they put

it on the telly. you are to have everything, the famously of grids, don't they? you both of you will know more about the grids than i do. political parties always have grids for campaigns, as i understand it, with days pencilled in and ready to activate. so, i mean, maybe the snp did. i mean, to be fair, they did say to me, it's day one, stay one. we didn't know he was going to call an election yesterday. give us a break. i'll be better. oh, tory, i wasn't using this as an opportunity to diss hardworking press officers of any political party, just like everyone�*s been caught on the hop, including at the bbc. i mean, we onlyjust had our newscast election graphics ready to go. thatjust there and then luckily. now, chris, let's go back to keir starmer because it was interesting just the rhythm of how these days work. yesterday, it was rishi sunak doing all the breakfast news programmes and answering loads of questions. today, it was keir starmer doing all the breakfast news programmes. but i noticed there was one question that pretty much every programme asked him, and it was along the lines of "who are you really?" because at one point in your career you said x, and at this point in your career you're saying why.

and here is how keir starmer answered that question when he was chatting to our colleagues on bbc breakfast. after the damage that's been done |to the economy and having costed| cutting tuition fees and having costed bringing down nhs- waiting lists, i'm left— with a choice, a political choice. i can't do both because the economy has been so badly damaged. - i've chosen that we will deall with the waiting lists and put the nhs back on its feet. chris, give us your review of how keir starmer was doing on his morning round as we as we call it, in the trade. yeah, i was struck by kind of one word, really, which was kind of caution. that was my word, not his, but just to sort of try and summarise his kind of posture, if you like, in those interviews. so, very aware of any kind of hostages to fortune, very aware of not saying anything that would set particular particular hares running, trying to explain away that familiar line of questioning which won't go away in this campaign, which is look at that list of things you campaigned on when you were running for the labour leadership and how come a whole lot of them have ended up in a skip.

and therefore, why can we trust that what you're promising now is something that you will deliver? that's the kind of reformulation of the sentence sentence of those kind of questions. and i've asked those questions myself, as have plenty of others. and his argument is about how things have changed since then, circumstances have changed. he was also talking to a different electorate then, wasn't he, because he was talking to labour party members rather than the wider country. but he has to find an answer to that question that is sufficiently convincing to a sufficient number of people that that is not something that they are put off from. the other thing he's got to do, i think we were talking about this on newscast yesterday or the day before — i'm losing track. but how do you do the whole change thing, which is the word that you see on every red placard and every lectern on the battle bus soon and all the rest of it. how do you do the change thing that sounds like it is something worth changing

to from the perspective of a voter, whilst at the same time being sufficiently reassuring to recent conservative voters in particular that voting labour isn't in any kind of way frightening. so that can sometimes be about narrowing what people might perceive could be the change that might come, so that's a tricky kind of balancing act. i think the way he's trying to square that is talking about trying to be this kind of personification of the end of what he describes as the chaos of the last few years, assuming that there is a relatively small contingent of people who are sort of pro—chaos, however, you kind of describe that. so, that's, ithink, kind of where he finds himself. i was intrigued in his interview on the today programme where he was asked by michelle hussain if he would be inclined to follow some of the european leaders who have said that their countries would recognise the state of palestine. that their countries would recognise the state of palestine, and he began an argument that sounded like the answer was yes. what he was saying very carefully was the logical conclusion of advocating a so—called two state

solution that plenty of countries have advocated for many, many years, is that you would get to the point that there would be a palestinian state, cos that would be the other state alongside israel. but he was very careful to say you'd have to seek an international consensus. it would have to be a safe and secure israel. it would, in other words, take rather a long time. and i defer tojeremy bowen, to commentator on the middle east. but finding an international consensus upon it i suspect would be rather difficult and take a long time. and therefore getting there, even though the answer sounded like yes, would probably in the short term at least least amount to a no. i'm so sorry. i have to cough. oh, james is having an on—air coughing moment! get that man a glass of water!

i'm so sorry, i'm so sorry. it's like this is behind the scenes. i love it. this is how the sausage is made on newscast. chris, it's interesting you mentioned his interview on the today programme with michelle hussein. i thought maybe that was keir starmer being slightly too thoughtful and honest for an election campaign because he was trying to answer her questions, which led him down some sort of non—campaign talking points, kind of cul de sacs. and i was quite surprised because i thought normally at this point in an election campaign, it's listen to the question, answer the question you want and answer it by talking about one of your key campaign pledges. i thought he was being a little bit a little bit too thoughtful, which obviously is what we want our politicians to be. but it was his message. discipline might potentially be a little bit tougher as the campaign progresses. i suppose it's an intriguing observation that, isn't it? but then equally, if you go back to your earlier question or thought when you were sort of summarising the line of questioning from plenty of interviewers this morning, alongside the kind of policies

so, you have to use the campaign as a canvas on which to paint an image of yourself, and probably that means that on occasion. and probably, that means that on occasion... erah, you have to do that thing where you are willing to sort of show an element of your workings in public and how you work through an argument. and i think he would make the case — not spoken to his team to his team in particular, and i think he would make the case — not spoken to his team in particular, about that particular conversation around the middle east, but that that's the kind of thing from his past as a lawyer and all the rest of it he's he would want to do, which is to set out the logic of an of an argument and do that in quite a sort of long long—form kind of way. and there'll be plenty more interviews with all the party leaders to look forward to, including some particularly in—depth ones in prime time, i hope. james, what was the point you wanted to make about keir starmer? sorry. just in terms of the caution thing,

there were a couple of things that struck me and one is about policy and the other one was a sort of behind the scenes sort of newscasters behind the scenes. so, the first one is that in terms of policy, caution is obviously... you can understand why sir keir starmer thinks caution is sensible, but that caution learns differently, arguably in different parts of the uk. so if you're looking at scotland where he is, you might argue, trying to win back a lot of more left wing voters who'd moved to the snp a decade ago. and he's saying things like, "we're going to stick to the tory spending plans for the public services, we're going to bring down immigration" — he doesn't say like the conservatives, but like the conservatives. and we are going to continue some of the controversial welfare policies of the conservative government of rishi sunak. then you get to the point where

caution might begin to be a bit damaging for you and allow i mean, i put this question to him today, allow his opponents to suggest that he's actually and it's a phrase that they've used the tory in disguise. that's the one thing. the behind—the—scenes thing about caution, i think is interesting. the morning the morning round, as you were saying, of interviews that you talk about, he did them from this building from the bbc scotland headquarters here. he did, i think, six and all of them were with programmes in england. good morning scotland on radio scotland wanted to get into a load of the detail of scottish issues at length with him and he said — well, his team said no. they interestingly when he was on the today programme, the presenters of good morning scotland could see him through the glass. so, i can imagine they were not delighted because they tried desperately trying so he wouldn't go on. he didn't go on good morning, scotland. no, he didn't do any any long form scottish interviews that i know of. no, he didn't do any any long form

scottish interviews that i know of that stand to be corrected. the bbc will at some point during the campaign, but then the newspaper reporters at the event. he was also reminded that i hesitate to call it an interview because when i grabbed a quick clip with him at the end, i was told you can have one question. that's not an interview, is it? when i grabbed three, really? but even that's not a proper you know, we all know we've done this. we know how it works. this is not unique to labour at all. this attempt to control the message and then the newspaper reporters who actually quite had quite a long time with him in a room, maybe, maybe 40, 45 minutes, they were saying, well, that's all very well, but we got one question but we got one question each as well. thank you for peeling back the curtain, pacific quay. james, i'll let you get on with your weekend, which i know is probably doing loads more work, but thanks. i'm golfing.

i'm sorry. all right. see you later. thanks, adam. chris, sticking with labour—related things, and of course, we'll be talking about all the political parties in great depth across the whole election campaign. it's just there's a few things have popped up today that are related to to labour in particular, jeremy corbyn is going to be standing in his constituency as an independent to just remind it's quite something really, because here you have a guy who, in five weeks and a bit is, going to be on a ballot paper taking on a labour candidate in a seat that he has represented, jeremy corbyn, for more than 40 years, and you know, for the vast majority of which is a labour mp. so, the guy who took labour, led labour into the last two general elections is now standing against labour at the next one. and so it tells you something of the kind of arc of recent labour history. so, you had jeremy corbyn as leader, of course he had keir starmer in his shadow cabinet, as the conservatives will frequently remind us in the next few weeks. then there was that report that was done into how labour

were handling antisemitism complaints and the whole swirling row around that. jeremy corbyn suggested that that had been exaggerated by political opponents and he was thrown out of the parliamentary labour party, suspended from the parliamentary labour party. and then he announced today he is going to run as an independent in islington north, his seat in north london, and that means he was expelled from the labour party, cos if you, a member of the labour party and you choose to run against the labour party in an election — perhaps it's not surprising — you would get expelled, which is what has happened. so it's quite something. and keir starmer was asked on his trip to glasgow, are you glad to see the back of him and was sort of very diplomatic and then talking up the fact that

labour will have a candidate and of course there'll be lots of other candidates. and i should say given we're talking about an individual contest, that there will be a full list of candidates for islington north and every other parliamentary constituency on the bbc news website after the close of nominations. but, yeah, it'sjust a little vignette, if you like, into that kind of recent history of the party. and from keir starmer�*s perspective, actually a noisy old row in one corner of north london is arguably, you know. yes, perhaps distracting occasionally, but quite useful if you can say, look, this is how the labour party has changed and the nomination deadline for candidates, i think, is two weeks today. so, from two weeks today, you will be able to go on the bbc website and see all the details. as chris was saying, of all the constituency candidates all across the uk, wherever, wherever there are elections, which is well everywhere. i'm just thinking about jeremy corbyn though. so this will be an interesting test case for personal political popularity in a place. see how many p—words i said there?

becausejeremy corbyn, i mean, i remember going out filming withjeremy corbyn in his own back yard a few times over the years, and he was super famous in north london. people like every third or fourth person would come up and hug him. and so it will be interesting to see, does that personal popularity transfer over into this new situation where he's standing in as an independent, or will loads of of his previousjeremy corbyn voters think, "oh, no, my priority is getting "a labour government in, therefore i'm not going "to jeopardise that by voting for an independent "in this constituency. "i'll vote for the labour candidate instead." and we will basically see that playing out on on election night. and then thinking about going out filming withjeremy corbyn reminds me of the time i did it. i think it was in 2016 and i went round finsbury park, which is his favourite local park, and it was the height of the pokemon go craze. do you remember that?

yeah! and so i taughtjeremy corbyn how to play pokemon go and this is how that went. so there we go. so we've gone on the map. yeah, in the way now. so he's in the way of the. so they were holding up the programme and you have to move aside so you know you're lucky the pokemon go shamelessly blocking the pokemon go shamelessly blocking the pokemon know the pokemon is ok now. so there's krabby. anyway, work this morning has not been in vain. - well, my memory of that was this was the leader of the opposition who was riding fairly high at that point. and i was like, you've got two hours to just wander around the park with me playing pokemon, which just shows you jeremy corbyn�*s leadership style was always different from everyone else�*s. yeah, no, absolutely. that's right. the thing i recall from jeremy corbyn was during the labour leadership race, his first labour leadership race in 2015,

and i was asked to do a thing for the victoria derbyshire programme on the bbc news channel at the time when carpool... was it carpool karaoke? that was the big clash at the time, wasn't it? james corden. yeah, so the idea was that i would drive around central london, as if that isn't hard enough as it is with a car, with loads of cameras all over it, and then have each candidate for the labour leadership sitting next to me whilst we did an interview basically. and so i did an interview with all of the candidates or the other three in the car and jeremy corbyn said no because he wasn't keen on environmental grounds on doing it in the car. and the suggestion was would do it on a tandem or because we thought two bikes are no good, because you'd be too far apart and you'd be shouting at each other. anyway, it wasn't going to work on a tandem for 1,000,001 technical reasons. and so yeah, but again there was he saying, look, i'm different from all

of the others basically. and that was and that was that strong message here. can i bring you a little bit of newscast breaking news, please? viewers were recording this at 659 on friday. michael gove is not going to stand the next election. no way! has he elaborated on why? s,o he's made the decision in the last couple of days, and there is an official statement coming shortly. i've been if i've been marginally distracted during this episode of newscasts, because i've been trying to get to the bottom of this. i've been in parliament since 2005, and he is going to stand down alongside more than 70 conservative mps. so, on the day where we've seen people like theresa may, the former prime minister, and harriet harman, the mother of the house, to use her formal title because she's been there for 42 years, doing that sort of

valedictory goodbye. quite an emotional speech, actually, in the house of commons. news that michael gove is is standing down. but interesting though, because michael gove is famed as one of the best orators in parliament, whether you agree with what he's saying in his speeches or not, they're usually pretty entertaining and very punchy and very well written. this means we're not going to have a michael gove goodbye speech in parliament. no. also, that kind of surprises me a bit because i would have thought he'd want to give one of them, which makes me think this is a really last—minute decision. yeah, well, i think it has been decided in the last couple of days. i mean, to that extent, of course it has. because there's only an election now. yeah. well, yeah, exactly. and so even if it was sort of kicking around in his mind, he might have thought, well, i can put off making a decision until the autumn. so yeah, but yeah, that's all. i'm just trying to think through the implications of this. so, is he quitting because he thinks he might lose in his constituency? so there's no point he think that's he thinks that's how bad the situation facin the tories in the opinion polls is? that's something to ponder over the weekend. and then another thing, it's like the tory party

of the future after the election campaign is over, whatever the outcome, that's a sort of very noughties, cameroonian sort of middle ground—y person with a particular view of what the conservative brand should be, who will be not there other than i go over supported lots of different versions in the conservative party since david cameron is gone. yeah, i think you probably can throw all of that into the mix. and then does he think — again, almost irrespective of the outcome of the election, does he think, "i've sailed pretty well in this "sort of politicaljourney, serving in high office "in various places." perhaps it's not likely to get much better. as things stand, when you look at the opinion polls, the view of plenty of conservatives that they expect that they may very, very well may lose. and therefore, if he was to win his seat, which could be quite a battle with the lib dems, you're then in opposition. does he want to do that compared

with being a cabinet minister? and i guess coupled with the fact that he's been an mp for the best part of 20 years and maybe you think, you know what, you go off and do something else irrespective of all of the above. and if i showed jeremy corbyn what pokemon was, i explained to michael gove, who nasty nick was in the first series of big brother cos i was doing work experience at the times newspaper as a student, and he was the news editor, and it was just as the whole nasty nick scandal was getting under way. and i had to explain to him what was going on. what was happening. so, i mean, i'mjust i'm doing the culture for all these big name. in terms of all the things that have happened today. anything else you want to flag up? i'm thinking things like ed davey, the lib dem leader, he was talking about enshrining a new right to see your gp in england sooner, but then people were asking questions about how that would be funded because that suggests you need to hire more gp�*s or pay them more to work longer.

but then he was, as somebody alluded to earlier on, he was in the titanic quarter of belfast as this was happening. so cue loads ofjokes about a sinking ship. indeed, yeah. yeah. no, i think you've done a pretty good, pretty good round—up. oh well what a, what an excellent review which is what you meant oh, well, what an excellent review which is what you meant to leave when you get to the end of a podcast. so chris, i'm sure you will not have a weekend because the election keeps going, but whatever you're doing, i hope it's nice and i'll catch up with you soon. all right, have a nice weekend. see you. and thanks to you for consuming this election cast episode