Anas Sarwar

So people often talk about, you know, the rest of the UK wants to be much more stringent and strict on welfare, whereas Scotland wants to be really generous on welfare.

Actually, if you look at polling

It's about 2% or 3% different to how people view the welfare state.

Immigration, again, people will think, oh, the rest of the UK, they really want to clamp down on immigration.

They think immigration is a huge issue people don't really care about in Scotland.

But in actual fact, immigration is now rising as an issue in Scotland.

It's probably a top three issue in Scotland now.

And actually always, if you look at views on immigration,

it was always a 2% or 3% difference.

So I've always been of a view that we have a chattering class in Scotland that is a bit more left-wing than the rest of the UK.

But what are challenges?

We're not immune to this in Scotland compared to anywhere else.

And in some ways, whilst I don't think, well, I know the SNP and reform aren't of the same political values.

I'm not going to pretend they are.

I'm not going to pretend that the SNP and reform have the same view when it comes to right-wing politics.

They don't have the same value system.

It'd be churlish to even suggest that they do.

but they do have one similarity.

They both play the politics of fear and blame.

Both fundamentally have an argument that says, identify a problem and point at a group of people or an institution and say, it wouldn't be that problem if it wasn't for them over there.