hundred sixty six to address the now late rally and i was all for that year the labor candidate for dell meddling to the high school mark l.h. and i won it right because i was brought out and i'm aiming community and if you are interested in politics a. candidate. told the problem that you lose the main community if you're interested in politics in those days then it was a labor party those new other party you could join and of course i joined the labor party young socialists i was the chair of the labor club at university i was the first xi of the scottish and then the national organizationally students then the fourth research officer for the labor party in scotland this was the first ever fool time research officer of the labor party in scotland the scottish council of the labor party site it was kind of very limited they will give of course because of the s.n.p. success of the favorites and before the election and subsequently in the seventy

four awaken the rule of my job in the role of the scottish labor party became much more important and for once we were listened to in london and devolution was forced on this course labor party well they wanted or not the labor party were persuaded of scotland to go for devolution against their will which is a fascinating i would absolutely help the s.n.p. more or less been told there are seventy four and you were the research officer had a hand in an achievement that result is underwriting the manifesto promising a powerhouse problem and then a year or two that you had decided that that wasn't going to happen and you were off to pass just knew what happened well we're two things first of all the way in which the labor party ottilie religion its promise to the school scottish people because the keel it misstated of the first white paper on the scottish same plea was for that a bit of control of the scottish development agency disc. in our manifesto as the

media for the regeneration the scottish economy that was issue number one in scotland brazil regeneration of the economy the assembly wasn't going to get it was powers and that was a major betrayal as far as i was concerned there were other betrayals but that was a major one and this was the first muted scottish assembly as it was there in modern times in the one nine hundred seventy s. being considered by the labor government because of the upsurge of support for the scottish national absolutely and the second issue was just a general wilson government under healy's chancellorship basically i think so all the jail season a lot of the promises that had been made was there the i.m.f. to the i.m.f. and the it didn't need to because the figures were falls presented and what would be made even worse as a habit of the treasury absolutely which still goes on today so that lead me along with themselves and john roberts and the then labor m.p. for peacefully to decide the time it comes to. the labor party member for

sophie. a john roberts in for paisley and you of the reception of some of the labor party so you're actually employed by the labor while you were plotting whenever we decided to do it i resigned within a day or two from the labor party if possible one of all of them to do well we were plotting anything until the white people came out which was the let must pass that the litmus test and therefore it was very quick i mean we met in jim's house with mobile phone who you knew who was the p.r. advisor to the labor party in scotland at the time very highly respected journalist in scotland and they resigned from the labor party but well two things happened one of the wasn't a general election. and secondly your party drifted into some trouble and waters the problem was two fold number one obviously came along and therefore the. it wasn't all h. and by the time the election came the s.

and p's credibility had condoned we suffered from lot and also the international markets and had by then infiltrated the s. and p. and b. sickly as an organization that losses and effectiveness and the something an election which of course margaret thatcher triumphed and yet the labor party were defeated the assembly legislation which had gone through the commons albeit fairly heavily butcher and then had a had a majority vote in favor of the one nine hundred seventy nine referendum and yeltsin but that was judged not to be in a large enough majority because of an amendment put forward by george coming i'm a liberal m.p. as we were subsequently found dreamt up by robin cook a very famous labor m.p. was a blocking mechanism and margaret thatcher's government decided that they could they could afford politically to detect the effect of the vastness of the end of ironic

these days where we're told that fifty one or fifty two percent referendum is sacristy yet it wasn't so and ninety seven i know it was totally wrecked the rules were wrecked demeaned for did it because it was such a high threshold the way the electoral register was done in those days that effectively dead people voted against the same plea that was the native fate of this is because they were ordinal register and in fact the winter of discontent added to that so you had to be removed for that i had exactly and people would be registered twice to get in up the it wasn't a not that the postal vote read them so on and so forth there's a lot of people who couldn't vote for perfectly legitimate reasons either because they were reddest of the wrong place didn't get a post of all as you say were dead well that effect of the counted as being against those i absolutely i mean a these days if you had done the late talk commission and there was these new we that would have passed the only two commissions taste of a field where we knocked over some. he would have gone to jail under the

circumstances that we saw in the aftermath of the one nine hundred seventy nine election you're basically looking at what resembled a political desert eagle and that is to say that there simply a loss to sympathize had been cut but to m.p.'s so was a lost his seat and so fierce the s.l.p. was a factor with the fun margaret thatcher was into the comments of a healthy majority leader and no sign of progress towards scottish government so what is all it will do there yet you can refile before i actually joined the number of years before i joined the same people because i actually through a stage of losing interest in politics and certainly losing interest in active politics and also at that time there was us there so the us base of the s.n.p. didn't appeal to me i think it's been transformed from easy someone to your own leadership and therefore it took me longer before i joined i also

had moved job and it was actually difficult for me job wise to become a member of the s.n.p. certainly transparently a member of the s.n.p. but eventually i did join the s.n.p. not just joined but by ninety eight i your demands there's an s.n.p. candidate a byelection glasgow the glasgow central byelection and that was an experience i'd never for inhalation in glasgow before the marshall audience should although the glasgow but thirty or forty miles apart but what is a part of costs that often vote in the same political that actually vote left of center that doesn't mean that the same place does or not talk glasgow politics is unique to glasgow and so the time of the ninety ninety two election you were playing quite an instrumental role in the s. and p's co you'd promoted me to be in charge of the party's publicity whether you know it i don't know. concession of. there it was it was

a very interesting campaign or the cause it was a campaign one thousand eight hundred two which promised much delivered much less not promised a lot still the campaign never been able to find history with a political party managed to put on fifty percent of the resort absolutely but lost the seat exactly absolutely to be fear the one of the seats where most with the seat who of course hadn't stewed or won the election as an ace in p.n.p. but over single as governor bush was a big loss psychologically and the success of the election in increasing a seat of the vote from the previous fourteen percent to twenty two percent of course was lost in the media but that formed the basis in the platform for building up you know the party organization and by the time we moved into the late ninety's we were now much stronger position and then looking back i think we would be used the phrase that i did in the we and they did when the free by ninety three

everybody to. the authorship of the three by the free president under most of those phrases absolute was actually one. not alexai it absolutely and the context of that was an answer to a question about the single market the single european market because my view as an economist boys that if scotland didn't get a power meant at the very least it was very strong and free to follow its own economic policy going into the single market with those tools at our disposal would present real challenges the scottish economy so we might roll on to the one thousand one thousand nine elections where the s.n.p. mounted. probably substantial absolutely schilens to the labor party in a general election this case a scottish journalists on one to ninety nine and your rival only in the scottish parliament a list member for the wessel school for central scotland what was it like. arrived

as one of that group of i think about thirty seven s.n.p. m.p. well it was thirty five but it was fun to ask because this was the fost of a democratically elected scottish parliament and to be a member of it i think is something that well you but only one of one hundred twenty nine so it's a very unique club to be end of course of no say of the nearly eighteen year olds in the scottish parliament so you're one of the original members that's right tenuous membership from the. well let's choose the. the winner using phrase census reconvening. one thousand one thousand nine and yourself continuously to this point but that was a marvelous time how confident were you that things would progress to the stage where the s.n.p. will govern i do think at that stage anybody we would hope for and we were certainly walking for them but i didn't think anyone would have said what i'm salut we sure it was going to be the kind of progress we did and potentially the idea of

being able to have an independent referendum organized effectively by the scottish parliament by two thousand and fourteen i don't think anybody would have confidently predicted that would happen having sayed it became very clear i think kelly owen as far as the people will consent the focus changed from being at westminster to the scottish parliament the scottish parliament. on the twenty first day of march in the year seventeen hundred seven is here by reconvene. pranking gave america a lot of new job opportunities and i needed to come up here to make some money like me twenty five thousand dollars as a teacher or i could meet. two thousand dollars

a year girl in trucks or chose to drove truck people who rushed to a small town in north dakota was among them plummet rate of zero percent like gold rush is very very similar to a gold rush but this beautiful story ended with pollution and devastation a lot of people have left here i don't know too many people here anymore just slow down so much they lost jobs that laid off the american dream is changing that's not what it used to be. and it's a tough reality to deal. henry kissinger once said the brochure in the united states went into the ukrainian crisis acting rationally based on mutual misconceptions with tensions heightened over the scruple case all the sides guided by misconceptions would deliberately misrepresenting since.

then what by recommending what i call go on. board will pull you out of the. mouth and then what about and i didn't do it will always be the good is it a thought. or known poem to hold. on a puff you seem. to. keep it or done or don't muddy if you come up with the truth. on genyen not about that i live in the mad at that game and the money on his i'm. not bad with the intent of but oh november of it if i stick by them it is down to what about nanami them but i have the only means has it and it is about.

welcome back and speaking to alec neal about his career in scottish politics we've reached a point when he arrives in the scottish parliament reconvened after free hundred years in one thousand nine hundred ninety. the s.n.p. won the two thousand elections by a majority in a p.r. system now were you surprised that that was possible straight question no the answer is i wasn't because i tried to keep my told me before so i tried to keep my ear very close to the killer and as you know. and the feedback from the grassroots and by that i don't just mean a sane piece supporters but from people who are traditionally but voters i thought it was possible i would have predicted that because the thing was a tall order p.r. system but i have to say by about three weeks before pulling the i was convinced

that we could not necessarily would but that we could actually meet the magic number to become a majority government and of course what happened i didn't tell you didn't tell anyone else that that was my feeling because i don't want to say it takes p.t.a. sions running but my view right along in that campaign wards there we can do it and b. that in the run up to the scottish referendum of twenty four you're in ever ever spent with the benefit of hindsight how well was played or one of the mistakes that we can there simply can learn from in the future you can always layer from mistakes but that's no you know i think we plea we ran an exceptionally good campaign i think we went from you know below theft in terms of support for independents and by pulling the with that up to forty five percent and that was against all this the entire media both the written and a lot of the television media and others being against is. clearly.

the big boys all come up from london in the last week to try and promise the voters so-called value that we're going to deliver big powers if we voted against independence which had an influence in the campaign and you think that was influential because many commentators say it wasn't it was it it was influential was the. to the bees the fate of lee delivered by gordon brown in a new bottle with the s. and p. thinks of gordon but iron he does have influence till others did at that time with labor voters or enough leiber voters is gordon brown the former i'm upset as i then retirement you came out of retirement to back a no vote yes or no and to underpin this new commitment to scotland exactly for what sometimes called devil max a lot suppose a bit short of a depression and i think he did boards he swung maybe three or four percent libor votes that were equivalent to three or four percent of the way to it but the five

percent to the most and that was enough photos to turn the tide in the law for them to turn the tide in the last week otherwise i think we may a done it so the aftermath of the twenty fourteen i stepped down as the first minister i resign or leave the field clear for a nickel sturgeon and those are the most enormous success in the twenty fifteen in general election year the momentum from the referendum colleagues forward and sweeps absolutely the unionist parties aside when you're fifty six out of fifty nine scottish seats did you have a figure that was possible. i don't think anybody thought that was possible including the unionist parties. and the other thing is i think we all need to missed the others and the unionist parties of thinking that that was scottish politics say for the next twenty years that you know these are the labor party could make any of a comeback in that we were going to be able and i think looking back you know we

that was too presumptuous because obviously the subsequent jello asian we lost twenty of those seats so a good thing i was our sound neutral listen for years but then something's happened when we muted the point during the. referendum it was possible scott could be taken out of europe against his will is. we put the point forward with no campaign said that was impossible the only way to stay within europe was to avoid or a level end of below and behold david cameron as prime minister gambled everything in european referendum and lost so the situation we'd ventilated as being a classic illustration of scotland's inability to control its own destiny or as other great examples the five submarines or the the war in iraq came to pass years in two thousand and sixteen. were you surprised that that did not

cause the sea change of opinion towards independence given that the indications are that independence support a state roughly put it was in the early fourteen much much higher than previously but not subject beyond the fifty percent mark i wasn't surprised in fact and the political cabinet just after nicol had taken over where we were discussing the prospect of this possibly happening newbie wanted it to happen potentially because clearly the s.n.p. didn't want to come out of europe but. at that discussion i specifically made the point that i did not believe that if we ended up with a differential between scotland the less the uki then that would automatically lead to a stampede for independence or anything like it but in particular your emotional attachment may be less than the s.n.p. is and is in suggestions that you personally voted against voted no in the european revelent of is those able to clear the one way or other for all time i've been

ordered to but i voted no i didn't campaign in the referendum presented just leave the government and i thought it would was a great quickly to go against government policy because it would have been no seen as a tactical move on an issue of principle the issue which you put your finger on many many years ago in the run up to the one thousand nine hundred two election and then a u.k. coming analysis the one that wasn't meant to be the leaked. week of two but you're showing that the u.k. government's own yeah but excedrin analysis is the single market in economic terms is hugely damaging maybe not the armageddon that george osborne was committing yourself to but nonetheless a substantial chunk of g.d.p. . analysis by breck's at the partner of the government in these circumstances hey are you in the same position as you were back in may the right to accepting the

preeminence of the single market in terms of the health of the scotia carnival two things first of all i've never seen any government economic forecast in fifty years that was and if we had leave i kill it i mean if you look at recently the your father that's not going to get one right through for the national office of statistics has produced an analysis recently not of a forecast but the growth rate for last year and they got it saw. the were forecasting less than one and a half the same girl with the u.k. and it turns out it was two percent growth so they can't tell us what's just happened let alone forecast was going to happen it will do you think and. scottish government were forecasting a major economic impact for being the years ago market and the pro but government who are also forecasting a substantial impact do you think they're both wrong coming from different well as not coming from different opinions because it's very clear that the u.k. my forecast is coming from civil servants who are wanting this does this to be in

the european union the scottish government obviously that's their policy but the important thing is we have to be and let me just see one of the big faults of these forecasts since they do take account of the behavioral changes that will happen particularly in the business community if and when breaks it actually happens or doesn't happen because business is a down and there is nothing in these forecasts underlies how business will adapt but the history of the economy going back hundreds of years as whether it's wars whether it's revolutions for ever as business as adults we don't know hundreds of you will have to go back twenty five years. since alec nero was telling the scottish national party we must get to independence because of the huge importance of the single market place. why does i think neal quarter of a century later having got all of the rest of opinion known seem to disregard the membership outside of market as such an important economic economic the first thing

is the e.u. has changed dramatically i'm not. sure but let me go to the single market or single market and the e.u. have changed dramatically in that period of time but more importantly looking to the future and this is think will agree in terms of scotland independent scotland i think in fact actually george osborne recently has made a statement saying that the u.k. should do this as well but i think we've the best way forward for scotland which avoids the don't sites place it now that you know it's a bounce but also allows us to keep an access to access the single market is important is to adopt was called the norwegian solution to join the european free trade association and that means that we're not going to be tied into federal going to states or europe which i think is going to happen and set we know what we scotland and dependent realise if we don't something like norway type solution then

we've been a much stronger position all right so let's employ your fifty years experience and politics having started a very young age what's going to happen what's going to happen at westminster what's going to happen to scope. well like economic forecast of i've always cautious in terms of forecasting for will happen but i think louis freeh by twenty twenty three it will i think there's a good chance that we will be if no end entirely independent sent much more independent than riyadh at the present time i think in the short term a number of things out of this number one is i think the reason we made survived just to see the brakes a deal done and it top of the shia but the inches are gone up so there will be a change of leadership in the. partly that's bowing to have consequences which could be good or bad for the tory party and you know i think any tory government is bad for the country anyway there's the possibility they will have another general

only option either in two thousand and nineteen or two thousand and twenty particularly if i'm right and as a new leader and that will have consequences secondly i think the brakes deal will be done i mean i just no matter which way you look at it no matter how optimistic or pessimistic you are as an interest of the e.u. as well as a huge key to how the deal and i think the deal will be done and we need to see the shape of the deal before we can then forecast puts likely to happen the an after but i think some things are very clear maybe it's going to go at some point fairly soon but i think we believed up with a deal including a transition period and after we've got to try and shape our own future and know our endowment for the approved breaks i'm to place whether we should be allowing other people to decide the future of scotland i don't want to decided in brussels don't want to just say to london i want to decided by the people in scotland i want

neal thank you so much pleasure now this has been a very revealing sure not least for me personally for much of the last generation i found a number of political differences of alec neal of course of corporator on many occasions for scott was benefit and indeed i have appointed him to the highest ministerial offices in the law but we're seldom been in total political agreement. now i have it's difficult to argue of his contention that the federal of way forward for scotland is beckoning in membership of efta the european free trade association an organization which would allow our country to retain its european economic and social connections but hope the danger being absorbed into the perspective of a federal continent in a sea of political uncertainty it might well unite the country and be the key to scotland further constitutional progress. from thousand and me and all of the people at the alex salmond show good bye for now.

exists is hotter than kentucky. over this new place you could go to st danny's. a co money city with almost no coal mines left. the jobs are gone all the coal miners are said i'd. love to see these people a survivor disappearing before their eyes. i remember thinking when i was younger that if anything ever happened to the coal mines here that it would

become a ghost town but i never thought in a million years i would see that and it's happening it's happened. also was to question whether it was very reasonable to react with sanctions and up breaking the dialogue between russia and still western countries. as one of those countries that is firmly convinced that it is necessary and will be necessary to keep up this dialogue and still talk. about all the metros. when you come in with the new skin it's so for us to do that that's the question is

to yes flatow yes the chest. but everyone that is with the. rushes un envoy describes the u.k.'s allegations in this creep all poisoning case as absurd during a tense meeting at the security council. r.t. visits a district of paris where the soaring crime rate has been blamed on gangs of migrant teenagers. the campaign for israeli women that to keep their seats on

airplanes instead of switching with ultra orthodox jewish men is blocked by the authorities. by broadcasting live direct from our studios in moscow this is our trash on sean thomas certainly glad to have you with us. now world.