James Cook

speaker

1,779 appearances 16 recordings 3 series first heard Mar 2025 last heard 19 Sep

James Cook’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 15 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 6.

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Newscast · Electioncast: The Winners And The Losers · 8 May 2026 podcast

But, you know, in the campaign, he was at pains to say that it wasn't a pro-independence majority, including the Greens, which...

would force the issue.

It was an SNP majority.

And, you know, SNP sources I've been talking to have been pointing out there's been a pro-independence majority in Parliament for quite a long time, if you add together the SNP and the Greens.

So the question is now, what does he do with that?

And he has a couple of options, really.

I mean, either he can steamroller ahead and say, well, the Greens are with us.

There's a pro-independence majority here.

I'm a Democrat.

I'm going to make the case.

I'm going to argue the case.

Or, and I think this is more likely, he'll have more of a subtle approach.

I think he has to keep his...

key core supporters who voted for him for independence happy and he's not going to say I'm giving up on the idea by any stretch of the imagination but I think we will see him in the coming days and weeks saying I have heard what you the voters have said about the importance to you of tackling the cost of living, of making life more affordable, of fixing the health service and in his key priority of bringing down poverty.

And I think he will try to do what arguably the SNP did under Alex Salmond's first term from 2007 onwards, try to rebuild then or rebuild now a reputation as a competent, stable government and use that reputation

as a platform to argue for independence.

That is to say, I do not think he's going to be at the gates of Downing Street demanding an immediate referendum, because I think he recognizes the reality of where the public are.

Yes, support for independence is high at around 50%.

But what pollsters talk about, they talk about salience.

And the salience of independence has fallen away in the last few years as the issue that people want to be fixed right now.

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