:00:13. > :00:18.Tonight on Newsnight Scotland, in a dramatic development in the Rangers
:00:18. > :00:21.saga, it emerges Craig Whyte used money from advance season-ticket
:00:21. > :00:27.sales in his takeover of the club. He claims he has done nothing
:00:28. > :00:32.illegal, and says he will not resign as chairman. Where does it
:00:32. > :00:35.leave Rangers and previous claims from Mr Whyte about how he bought
:00:35. > :00:43.the club? Tonight, there is more clarity on
:00:43. > :00:46.what has been going on for Rangers. Since the club went into
:00:46. > :00:51.administration, a chorus of voices have been demanding to know what
:00:51. > :00:56.happened to millions of pounds raised by selling the rights to
:00:56. > :01:00.future season tickets to a country -- a company called Ticketus. Both
:01:00. > :01:08.Craig Whyte and the administrators said it was used as part of the
:01:08. > :01:13.takeover. There is some flash photography in this piece.
:01:13. > :01:17.In a statement issued this afternoon, Mr Whyte says the deal
:01:17. > :01:22.with Ticketus was initially made to provide working funds to keep
:01:22. > :01:30.Rangers going. But it then says the Ticketus deal was used to complete
:01:30. > :01:40.the takeover. He says he, not the club, is on the line for the money.
:01:40. > :01:49.
:01:49. > :01:53.I gave ticket as personal and Minutes later, they stayed banned
:01:53. > :02:03.from the administrators suggested the Ticketus money was used to pay
:02:03. > :02:17.
:02:17. > :02:25.The administrators added that they were still trying to find that what
:02:25. > :02:31.happened to the best of the money. -- find out. Mr Whyte also gave his
:02:31. > :02:41.take on the non-payment of taxes, which appears to have prompted the
:02:41. > :03:08.
:03:08. > :03:12.tax authorities to appoint an He goes on to add that in the so-
:03:12. > :03:18.called big tax case, with potential liabilities in excess of �50
:03:18. > :03:24.million, he also offered HMRC �2.5 million a year payment. Again, he
:03:24. > :03:34.says this has been rejected. Craig Whyte also suggests he would
:03:34. > :03:49.
:03:49. > :03:59.consider handing most of its shares And he says whatever happens, his
:03:59. > :04:19.
:04:19. > :04:24.So, some clarity, but, as with so much of this, today's developments
:04:24. > :04:26.will raise as many questions as answers will stop our correspondent
:04:27. > :04:36.Mark Daly has reported extensively on this.
:04:36. > :04:40.He is with us to give his take. The plot thickens. Hot on the heels
:04:40. > :04:44.of the state than from Craig Whyte, which seemed to depose moors
:04:44. > :04:50.questions than it answered, Rangers administrators delivered the
:04:50. > :04:53.bombshell. The Ticketus money was used to pay the debt to Lloyds
:04:53. > :04:59.Banking Group. Mr Whyte says he secured this deal personally, and
:04:59. > :05:07.fans would not lose out. But Ticketus say they own large amounts
:05:07. > :05:09.of future ticket sales, and if the club avoids of the list -- avoid
:05:09. > :05:14.liquidation, the money will come to them, making Rangers less
:05:14. > :05:21.attractive to a buyer. Craig Whyte says he had -- says he wishes he
:05:21. > :05:28.had been more transparent. But three weeks ago, given that the
:05:28. > :05:38.opportunity to respond to claims he had used the Ticketus of money to
:05:38. > :05:38.
:05:38. > :05:43.But Mr Whyte only paid a nominal fee of �1 for the club. He would
:05:43. > :05:47.hire -- he would hardly need the Ticketus money for that. It but his
:05:47. > :05:53.purchase was conditional on acquiring that �80 million of debt,
:05:53. > :05:57.which was immediate be paid off. So today's disclosure means it was
:05:57. > :06:01.effectively the fans that paid off the debt, which allowed the deal to
:06:01. > :06:05.go through. It was this issue that prompted former chairman Alastair
:06:06. > :06:12.Johnson to ask the Insolvency Service to investigate whether
:06:12. > :06:21.company law was broken. Mr Wei's angry denial appears to be
:06:21. > :06:25.in grave doubt. -- Mr Whyte's. We now await the next announcement
:06:25. > :06:30.from the administrators, for whom the Craig Whyte fought hard to have
:06:30. > :06:34.appointed. By their own admission, their staff have been involved with
:06:34. > :06:39.Rangers before the takeover, so why did they not already know of this
:06:39. > :06:45.arrangement before today? Joining me his Jim Traynor from the
:06:45. > :06:49.Daily Record, and in our Edinburgh studio, Stephen Morrow.
:06:49. > :06:53.I am sure many people will think that the phrase you could not make
:06:53. > :06:59.this stuff up was invented for this?
:06:59. > :07:04.I do not think anybody expected Craig Whyte to issue a statement. I
:07:04. > :07:08.think it was a bit naive and a bit desperate. The it did not say a lot,
:07:08. > :07:12.apart from the fact that he is admitting he used the Ticketus
:07:13. > :07:16.money, something he had been denying all along, to fund the club.
:07:16. > :07:20.I think he was badly advised to issued a statement, I think he
:07:20. > :07:25.should have been looking at what the administrators are doing, what
:07:25. > :07:29.they are recovering, because their statement is saying that legally,
:07:29. > :07:33.he used the Ticketus money to fund the club. They may be a bridge of
:07:33. > :07:38.the law here, and I think that is what financial and corporate
:07:38. > :07:45.experts will be looking at. It really is very strange. To say
:07:45. > :07:49.things like I will give to the fans the shares, my shareholding, they
:07:49. > :07:53.own them anyway, because apparently they have paid for them! That is
:07:53. > :07:58.what some others have argued all along. Nothing Craig Whyte says
:07:58. > :08:03.today changes that. Stephen, are you satisfied that if
:08:03. > :08:08.we put together Craig Whyte's statement with the statement from
:08:08. > :08:15.the administrators, it is clear now that the Ticketus money was used as
:08:15. > :08:20.part of the takeover? There is no doubt about that. The
:08:20. > :08:26.administrators are pretty expensive on that. It does not need to say
:08:26. > :08:31.very much on that. -- pretty explicit.
:08:31. > :08:34.Dennis not necessarily anything illegal in that. Apart from the
:08:34. > :08:38.fact it is not what they were saying before.
:08:38. > :08:42.Yes, it is completely inconsistent, but we know that other football
:08:42. > :08:46.clubs do deals of this nature, sell their season ticket in advance when
:08:46. > :08:55.they are trading normally, so there is nothing wrong with doing that,
:08:55. > :08:59.but I think the issue is one of transparency at the extent to what
:08:59. > :09:04.state this information was withheld. I think there is a problem.
:09:04. > :09:11.Normally these deals would be for �5 million to tide you over till
:09:11. > :09:16.the end of the season. But to to do it over three or four years because
:09:16. > :09:24.you cannot repay the first one, and apart from that, for the next three
:09:24. > :09:30.seasons after this one, Ticketus will have a the first 60% of all
:09:30. > :09:35.Rangers' season tickets. Normally it is only 25%.
:09:35. > :09:44.For a lot of fans will be watching this. Let's try get some answers.
:09:44. > :09:49.How do we explain the fact that Craig Whyte says that he has got
:09:49. > :09:54.guarantees for �27.5 million. What is the difference between that and
:09:54. > :09:58.the income plus VAT? Is that a commissioner that Ticketus would
:09:58. > :10:02.have earned? One would assume so, because they
:10:02. > :10:06.are lending money up front, and there is a risk associated with
:10:06. > :10:12.that. The other thing is that when he
:10:12. > :10:20.says, and I quote, that he gave Ticketus a personal and corporate
:10:20. > :10:26.guarantees, and then he later says he is on the line for 27. Million -
:10:26. > :10:32.- �27.5 million it guarantees that cash, what does that mean?
:10:32. > :10:37.It is not at all clear. You think some of that is still secured
:10:37. > :10:40.Against part of the company, but he also says that is not the case, and
:10:40. > :10:46.he talks about his personal guarantee and cash. It is very
:10:46. > :10:50.unclear. For what he talks in a statement about being more
:10:50. > :10:58.transparent, this statement itself is not very transparent. It raises
:10:58. > :11:02.more questions than answers. There is one area, at least where I
:11:02. > :11:06.understand it, the Craig Whyte statement is not consistent with
:11:06. > :11:11.the administrators. He seems to imply that any of the Ticketus not
:11:11. > :11:14.used to pay off debt was used for working capital, whereas the
:11:14. > :11:18.administrators say the money that was not given to Lloyds Bank to pay
:11:18. > :11:28.off the debt, they seem to imply they do not know what happened to
:11:28. > :11:29.
:11:29. > :11:33.I think that is right. They have not qualified that, possibly
:11:33. > :11:38.because they have not had time to go through all the transactions, or
:11:38. > :11:46.maybe because that money is not available to them, they do not have
:11:46. > :11:51.transparency on that. We know that working capital means that it
:11:51. > :11:56.allows a completed continued to trade on a day-to-day basis, but it
:11:56. > :12:02.can mean different things... Jim, there has been a certain
:12:02. > :12:08.congruence between this and what Craig Whyte has been saying so
:12:08. > :12:12.far... Many of the administrators that Craig Whyte wanted to break in
:12:12. > :12:18.-- bring into a minister this process, there seems to be this
:12:18. > :12:24.difference of opinion, and it will not be a surprise to discover that
:12:24. > :12:30.the administrators are obliged to pass on some of the findings to the
:12:30. > :12:35.police authorities. Because their needs now to be an investigation.
:12:35. > :12:41.Stephen, there needs to be -- the other issue was the current tax
:12:41. > :12:45.bill, not the big tribunal case, but tax owed over the previous
:12:45. > :12:51.period. Craig Whyte seems outraged by the fact that HMIC would not do
:12:51. > :12:56.a deal, but would you normally been a situation where you are business,
:12:56. > :12:59.and you are is expected to hand over PAYE that you have collected,
:12:59. > :13:04.would you normally think we can do a deal with this rather than for
:13:04. > :13:09.the tax authorities to say, no, you pay this as a matter of course?
:13:09. > :13:14.Affect normal process would be that you pay those obligations...
:13:14. > :13:20.Otherwise we would all be trying this! Yes, it is on the when one
:13:20. > :13:24.gets into financial difficulties, one is that the position of
:13:24. > :13:27.thinking about doing deals. But I think it is not quite clear,
:13:27. > :13:31.because some part of the comments made last week when there was talk
:13:31. > :13:37.about going into administration, and then when they were put into
:13:37. > :13:43.administration, there is not consistency around what Mr Whyte is
:13:43. > :13:48.saying about any of this. Also you have to remember that age MIC
:13:48. > :13:58.offered by deal, and Craig Whyte except the �4 million tax bill
:13:58. > :14:04.would have been... Jim, what do you make of this idea
:14:04. > :14:08.that he would hand his shares to some corporate,... It probably
:14:08. > :14:15.strikes the right note with the supporters, but I think it will not
:14:15. > :14:19.happen. They own the shares anyway because they pay for them. Stephen?
:14:19. > :14:25.I am not sure what the technical position is, whether he is able to
:14:25. > :14:30.do that? The focus is of course on the creditor, but if you think
:14:30. > :14:36.about the real asset, is the right to play football, and that remains
:14:36. > :14:41.with the owners of the shares. But it strikes me that his -- he is
:14:41. > :14:46.almost like, surprised by the reaction to what has gone on. And
:14:46. > :14:49.it is some sort of sop to that supporters, who will be looking at
:14:49. > :14:53.this and thinking it is a number of years' season tickets.
:14:53. > :14:56.Thank you very much indeed. There are major concerns that the
:14:56. > :15:00.standard of Scottish education is falling behind other education
:15:00. > :15:05.systems in the world. No one knows why, but most experts agree reform
:15:05. > :15:09.is needed. The quality of teacher training is one issue policy makers
:15:09. > :15:12.are trying to tackle, and Glasgow University have decided to try
:15:12. > :15:17.something new. They have paired up with a high school in Ayrshire to
:15:17. > :15:21.test a new way of training the next generation of teachers. Critics
:15:21. > :15:26.worry it will bring even more stress into an already stressed
:15:26. > :15:30.education system. It is not just pupils were a
:15:30. > :15:34.learned here at Irvine Royal Academy. This class is being run by
:15:34. > :15:39.a student teacher, and forms part of her teacher training. This is
:15:39. > :15:46.part of a new pilot, which on the face of it is not hugely different
:15:46. > :15:50.to how it has been done before. But look more closely, walk -- looking
:15:50. > :15:53.on are more student teachers. Gone are the lecture halls and short
:15:53. > :15:57.practical placements - these students are going back to school
:15:57. > :16:01.for their entire training here. many years we have been saying we
:16:01. > :16:06.should maximise the time students have in schools learning the craft
:16:06. > :16:09.of teaching. We welcome the impact of the -- the input of the
:16:09. > :16:14.academics in the building, but teachers have been saying for a
:16:14. > :16:19.long time, let us maximise the skin's' experience, and this model
:16:19. > :16:24.will do that. There will be 35 student teachers and two lecturers
:16:24. > :16:29.based here. The Education Minister Mike Russell visited them in their
:16:29. > :16:35.lecture theatre. They will be told the theory here and applied -- and
:16:35. > :16:39.they will apply it in their classrooms. The advantage is having
:16:39. > :16:43.regular contract with other departments. Now I have contact
:16:43. > :16:50.with other students who are teaching other things. I learn
:16:50. > :16:55.about their experiences with other students. I think definitely you
:16:55. > :17:01.can have a seminar then go and reflect on it and then put it into
:17:02. > :17:06.practice. If you are at university, it is often four weeks before you
:17:06. > :17:11.go into placement. If all of this sounds familiar, it is not that
:17:11. > :17:17.different to how things used to be. The old Irvine Royal Academy --
:17:17. > :17:19.Jordan held teaching college is just a stone's throw from the
:17:19. > :17:25.college were the students got their practical experiences. But the
:17:25. > :17:30.unions are still voicing concerns. The EIS worries what will happen to
:17:30. > :17:34.the pupils and its members. It is also concerned about the stress put
:17:34. > :17:38.on schools having to deal with so many student teachers. The way the
:17:38. > :17:42.model works is, each department will only have one or two students,
:17:42. > :17:46.and that will be the normal model under the old system. The
:17:46. > :17:49.difference is they have lots to do at the same time, and therefore
:17:49. > :17:52.from the point of view of the teacher and the Department and the
:17:52. > :17:56.school, their money is no difference.
:17:56. > :17:59.Irvine Royal Academy is the first to become an official part the
:17:59. > :18:03.scheme with a Glasgow University, but the Education Minister believes
:18:03. > :18:07.this is a model that can be adopted throughout Scotland. I have no
:18:07. > :18:12.doubt we will see this across Scotland at some stage in the near
:18:12. > :18:18.future. It is harder to get the critical mass, I think did you hear
:18:18. > :18:22.is that the critical mass is about 35 students. It will be harder in
:18:22. > :18:26.rural areas, but I think it can be done.
:18:26. > :18:30.The idea comes from America, and Dustin averse to hopes it will
:18:30. > :18:33.improve the quality of teacher training and make students better
:18:33. > :18:42.equipped for the classroom. Early pilots in Glasgow have been deemed
:18:42. > :18:46.a success. There are things we need to work on and develop, but by and
:18:46. > :18:49.large the students like it, the local authorities like it, the
:18:49. > :18:52.pupils like it, and everybody seems to think it is a better model than
:18:52. > :18:56.the one we had before. It will be some time before anyone
:18:57. > :19:01.can measure what effect this new model of teacher training has on
:19:01. > :19:03.education standards, but if this planet goes well, there is every
:19:03. > :19:13.chance are the Scottish universities could follow Glasgow's
:19:13. > :19:20.lead. A look at tomorrow's headlines.
:19:20. > :19:25.White has promised to step aside and handling just over two fans
:19:25. > :19:35."ludicrous". I will be back tomorrow. Until then,
:19:35. > :19:40.
:19:40. > :19:46.Good evening. Turning wet macro across the UK in the morning. The
:19:46. > :19:53.wettest will be Northern Scotland and the Cumbrian fells, 50 to 100
:19:53. > :19:59.mm of rain. Fast-flowing rivers as well. There will still be some
:19:59. > :20:05.patchy night rain or drizzle, gusty winds, 50 miles an hour. The South
:20:05. > :20:11.East and East Anglia stay dry, but a cool day to come. Temperatures
:20:11. > :20:17.only nine or ten Celsius. After a reasonably dry Stark, the south-
:20:17. > :20:22.west and Wales will seek rain. Northern Ireland, rain on and off.
:20:22. > :20:28.Heaviest in the morning, patchy and light in the afternoon. 12-13
:20:28. > :20:33.Celsius still possible, and even across Scotland 12-14 is likely.
:20:33. > :20:36.The North East should get a little bit drier and brighter. Thursday,
:20:36. > :20:41.not as wet across parts of north- west England and Scotland and
:20:42. > :20:49.Northern Ireland, but generally cloud did on hills. England and