Anas Sarwar

I came out of that parliament and got doorstepped by the entire Scottish press lobby.

And I didn't get a single question about the hospital.

I didn't get a single question about the families.

Every single question was about Peter Mandelson, the UK Labour government, and the judgment calls and him being appointed as the US ambassador.

And honestly, I'm just not willing to defend that.

I'm not willing to defend what was someone who shouldn't have even been considered for the job of ambassador, never mind be ambassador.

And also, I'm not willing to sacrifice Scotland to that kind of argument, to that debate, because who the government in Scotland is, who the First Minister is, really matters to us in Scotland, because it's our schools, our hospitals, our care homes, our towns, cities, villages, it's our ferries, it's our transport system, it's our local businesses.

And I'm not willing to sacrifice any of them because I'm not willing to be open and honest about what's happening across the UK or indeed what needs to happen here in Scotland.

I'm not sure what you're suggesting I'm defending.

So first of all, look, I'm not doing it to run against a UK Labour government.

I'm running against a Scottish SNP government.

But where I think I do think we can show a lead by example here in Scotland is we are going to bring down the tax burden in Scotland and demonstrate we can grow our economy and cut tax.

We are going to reform our rate system to make sure we're not rigging it against high streets and town centres.

But even bigger than that, if you think about the first conversation we had when we started this conversation around 45 minutes ago, is we talked about the big challenge around the politics of the right, largely the politics of reform,

I honestly believe in Scotland we will demonstrate to the rest of the UK how you can win in the politics of hope and unity, not feed off the politics of despair.

And I honestly think we can be an example to the rest of the UK how you can do change by bringing people together, not further dividing people.

And also be an example to the rest of the UK that you can do it while telling a positive story about your country.

And I think a lot of that's been what's missing since the UK Labour government got elected.

So I've always had a view, Alistair, that our chattering class in Scotland had a more progressive, less of centre position than...

what would be the nuts and bolts if you poll people about priorities and different issues.