Category Archives: Newsnight Scotland Leaders Interviews

Newsnight Leaders Interviews, Series 2 No.5: Patrick Harvie

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The Scottish Greens were ignored this time round in the series of leader’s interview, but Patrick Harvie was interviewed briefly after the launch of the Green’s manifesto. I’ve included it in my series, and hope to post any further interviews with any other parties, such as the SSP or even George Galloway.

The interview was a mere 3 minutes long and talked about raising tax and how many MSPs the Greens wanted. At least Gordon Brewer, this time, discussed and argued the tax raising policy rather than perform a personality attack. Perhaps he was sated after Iain Gray.

Newsnight Leaders Interviews, Series 2 No.4: Alex Salmond

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The final newsnicht leaders interview is with Alex Salmond (so I’ll also include the Patrick Harvie mini-interview from the other day for completeness later)

Not only was this the last of the interviews, it was the poorest. If Gordon Brewer doesn’t feel like he has something to attack it seems like he can’t interview at all. Brewer was never going to have the same easy targets to find like he did with Tavish Scott, Annabel Goldie, or Iain Gray and was left floundering on the independence referendum and the idea that voting SNP gave David Cameron an easy time.

Any questions on policy were left to the final couple of minutes and there wasn’t enough time to question Salmond’s answers.

Newsnight Leaders Interviews, Series 2 No.3: Iain Gray

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Next up to face the not so subtle interviewing techniques of Gordon Brewer on #newsnicht is Iain Gray

Timing in politics everything. If Iain Gray had been the first Leader up, he may have got an easier time. But this interview came after a fresh set of poor poll results for Labour, the subway incident, a good performance from Alex Salmond on Question Time, and both Labour’s flagship policy and statistics on knives and Richard Baker were torn to shreds on Newsnight Scotland the previous night.

No wonder he looked terrified at the start. Highlight was the comment about the infamous Subway event “I did not run, I walked away”

For the whole series of interviews see my Newsnight Scotland Interview category

Newsnight Leaders Interviews, Series 2 No.2: Annabel Goldie

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The second lamb up for the Leaders interviews on #newnicht was Annabel Goldie. I’m right on top of this as the interview was published on Tuesday.

The main revelation from the interview was that Goldie is not the leader of the Scottish Conservative Party. She is merely the Leader of the MSP group in the Scottish Parliament. Basically the same standing as Iain Gray for Labour. Goldie said that the party organisation was disparate and matters are dealt with by the party organisation. In fact, I tracked down a Telegraph article from January of this year that stated :-

Effective control of the Scottish Conservatives has been passed to London party chiefs

Whilst there is a party chairman, the Scottish Conservatives are run from London. Annabel did not handle the question well at all, and it is not surprising if she is trying to avoid looking like she is not in control, and doesn’t know what is going on.

Newsnight Leaders Interviews, Series 2 No.1: Tavish Scott

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Newnight Scotland, or is it officially #newsnicht now are doing another round of Leader’s interviews so I’ve got to keep up. Here is the first, in the second round, Tavish Scott

Note that I don’t set the title of the video as it is from YouTube and Baron Sawar of Govan but you will have to admit that Tavish Scott did not give the most accomplished of performances, unprepared for the harsh questions from Gordon Brewer. I’m surprised because there was nothing that wasn’t really asked before and Tavish normally handles himself well.

The tone was set when answering the introductory question with the fact that the campaign had “had its ups and downs”. This was one of the downs, I’m afraid.

Newsnight Leaders Interviews, No.2: Patrick Harvie

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Newsnight Scotland are running a series of Interviews featuring the leaders of the main parties in the run up to the 2011 election. Here is the second, Patrick Harvie, the Scottish Green Party, co-convener.

I think they are running one a week, so expect Alex Salmon, Tavish Scott and Annabel Goldie over the next three weeks.