Anas Sarwar

We did the hard work to earn people's trust and to win the general election in Scotland, getting a share of the vote.

There was a 10 times increase in share of the vote in Scotland compared to the rest of the UK because we did the hard work and won people's trust in 2024.

We did the hard work to win the Hamilton by-election when people say we're going to come third.

One journalist even suggested we would come fifth in that by-election.

And now we're going to do the hard work to persuade people for this election.

So we've got to earn people's trust and their support and be good enough to win.

And for too long, sadly, in the last 20 years, we've not been good enough.

And that's why we got beat.

Are you taking responsibility for that?

I was a young boy then.

We're not doing any coalitions, any deals, any stitch-ups.

Alex Salmond demonstrated actually in 2007 that you can do minority government and the parliament can work.

And don't forget in 2007 he did minority government and he went on to win a majority.

in 2011.

And my intention is to hopefully win the majority of constituencies in this election and to form a minority Labour government and go back to what devolution was supposed to be about, which was try and find common ground and individual issues to make progress in our country.

I mean, it is the act of a desperate man, Alistair.

And what about the Tories?

No, no deals, no coalition, no grubby backroom stuff.

And the reason why I think it's really important is this is a political party in reform that literally spent tens of thousands of pounds...

on an advert saying that my first loyalty would not be to Scotland, it would be to somewhere else.