:00:09. > :00:11.Tonight on Newsnight Scotland. Rangers' debts are even larger than
:00:11. > :00:16.we thought, but despite that, the administrators are entertaining
:00:16. > :00:20.three bids for the club. But are they really in a position to sell
:00:20. > :00:22.Rangers to anyone? Also tonight, should the Lockerbie
:00:22. > :00:25.prosecutor become a High Court judge?
:00:25. > :00:30.And we'll be examining why politicians have been preparing for
:00:30. > :00:33.the Easter break by making even more gaffes than usual.
:00:34. > :00:37.Good evening. Well, it turns out that Rangers owe the princely sum
:00:37. > :00:40.of �130 million - pretty small beer for, say, a major bank, but not bad
:00:40. > :00:46.for a football club which the administrators say has three
:00:46. > :00:55.bidders desperate to take it over. But is this scenario where there's
:00:55. > :00:59.a beauty parade of would-be owners really the whole story? There's
:00:59. > :01:03.been a change in language by the administrators over the last few
:01:03. > :01:06.days. Less about an orderly exit from administration and more about
:01:06. > :01:11.the very real possibility of liquidation. At the weekend they
:01:11. > :01:14.referred to the toxicity of the business. Well, they weren't wrong.
:01:14. > :01:17.Today's publication of the creditor list is a requirement of the
:01:17. > :01:25.administration process. It tell as story of a business which appears
:01:25. > :01:31.to owe money to just about anyone it has had dealings with. As things
:01:31. > :01:40.stand, Rangers owe the company to which the current owner sold future
:01:40. > :01:44.ticket income almost �27 million. The fans who coughed up cash in
:01:44. > :01:48.advance, that's almost �8 million. Current tax liability is just over
:01:48. > :01:53.�14 million. Adding in other unsecured liabilities that's �55
:01:53. > :01:58.million. And crucially that figure doesn't include both ongoing tax
:01:58. > :02:03.cases over whether Rangers avoided tax. The administrators estimate
:02:03. > :02:08.the smaller tax bill at �4 million. What's become known as the big tax
:02:08. > :02:14.bill at �75 million. When you add that little lot together you goat
:02:14. > :02:17.the eye watering sum of �134 million. That's more than twice the
:02:17. > :02:23.annual turnover of the club, nearly three times if they haven't
:02:23. > :02:28.featured in European Commission. So apart from the tax liabilities
:02:28. > :02:33.estimated at over �90 million, who else do Rangers owe money to? The
:02:33. > :02:40.list is almost endless. Everything from �8,000 to the Scottish
:02:40. > :02:46.Ambulance Service, over �1 million to Ran id Vienna, to just over �60
:02:46. > :02:50.to a hire company. In a sign of just how much money the club's been
:02:50. > :02:56.haemorrhaging, since going into administration in February, in a
:02:56. > :02:59.period of six weeks to mave it took in �1 million in revenue but spent
:02:59. > :03:04.three-and-a-half times that. So despite being in administration the
:03:04. > :03:11.business was still spending more than it was earning, to the tune of
:03:11. > :03:16.�2.5 million. Oh, and don't forget the advaitor fees - over �1 million.
:03:16. > :03:20.-- administrator fees - over �1 million. The administrators are
:03:20. > :03:25.poring over three perspective buyers but it is not clear what is
:03:25. > :03:28.being sold and what the bidders are proposing to bite.
:03:28. > :03:30.-- buy. Maureen Leslie is the director of
:03:30. > :03:33.insolvency practitioners MLM Solutions with over 20 years
:03:33. > :03:39.experience in this area. I began by asking her whether the situation
:03:39. > :03:42.with the club is any clearer tonight. Not substantially. There's
:03:42. > :03:48.still huge uncertainty about what the administrators can actually
:03:48. > :03:52.sell. If they want to sell the club, they have to have Craig Whyte's
:03:52. > :03:55.agreement to transfer or sell his shareholding. If they want to sale
:03:55. > :04:00.the business and assets they don't require that. But as the report
:04:00. > :04:04.makes clear, they don't have his consent at this point to any
:04:04. > :04:09.transfer, and they are still discussing both options. It is not
:04:09. > :04:13.clear what the bids that they've received are actually bidding for.
:04:13. > :04:17.Whether they are bidding for the club or whether they are simply
:04:17. > :04:20.bidding for its assets. This is a crucial point, because it is not
:04:20. > :04:25.clear, these administrators are in a position to sell Rangers as a
:04:25. > :04:29.going concern to anybody. That's correct, Gordon. You can see that
:04:29. > :04:34.they themselves acknowledge that in the report they've published today.
:04:34. > :04:38.They make quite clear that they do not have Craig Whyte's consent, or
:04:38. > :04:43.agreement, to sell his shares to anybody. We don't know the details
:04:43. > :04:47.of these bids that are coming in, but there is something surreal
:04:47. > :04:51.about this. What is likely... People are talking as if there are
:04:51. > :04:56.bids and the administrators will decide between one or the other.
:04:56. > :05:02.One assumes these bids are all conditional on minor matters being
:05:02. > :05:08.resolved, like what are you going to do about Craig Whyte and the
:05:08. > :05:14.taxman? Absolutely. Any bid I would imagine is heavily caveated as to
:05:14. > :05:19.what it is I'm bidding for, what it is I want to purchase. Until they
:05:19. > :05:27.can resolve that issue of Craig Whyte's shareholding or his
:05:27. > :05:32.attitude to that shareholding, they can't be clear. The liabilities, it
:05:32. > :05:35.is interesting they've unincluded a substantial liability, that they've
:05:35. > :05:40.recognised that there's a likelihood or a possibility that
:05:40. > :05:44.the big tax case will go against them. That's been included in that
:05:44. > :05:47.�135 million figure. But just to be clear, because again people are
:05:48. > :05:51.talking about this as if this is a normal transaction where something
:05:52. > :05:56.a up for sale, there are various bids and the administrators will
:05:56. > :06:00.decide between them. But what we have here is administrators who it
:06:00. > :06:05.is not clear have any right to sell anything, with bids that are
:06:05. > :06:13.probably so heavily conditional that it is stretching credibility,
:06:13. > :06:16.perhaps, to call in the bids in a meaningful sense? I understand your
:06:16. > :06:19.point, but the administrators have the right to sell, they have the
:06:19. > :06:23.right to sell the business and assets of Rangers Football Club.
:06:23. > :06:26.They don't have the right to sell the shares without the
:06:26. > :06:30.shareholder's consent. They have got the right to sell something,
:06:30. > :06:35.but it is not their first preference. Their preference is to
:06:35. > :06:41.sell the shareholding, to sell Rangers Football Club. Is it
:06:41. > :06:48.credible that someone would want to buy this club? �130 million in debt.
:06:48. > :06:55.You think it is still doable? sell the club? Yes. Without a CVA,
:06:55. > :06:59.absolutely not at all. No-one would put money into funding such an
:06:59. > :07:03.enormous debt mountain. They are looking for something a bit cleaner,
:07:03. > :07:09.so there must be an agreed CVA I would imagine before anyone would
:07:09. > :07:15.want to purchase the club. So given all we've been saying, is a CVA do
:07:15. > :07:20.you think still doable? Provided �25 million is on the table and
:07:20. > :07:26.even if the worst case scenario that they lose the big tax case it
:07:26. > :07:30.would still give creditors about 12p in the pound which is not too
:07:30. > :07:40.unreasonable a return to be rejected out of hand. So yes I do
:07:40. > :07:41.
:07:41. > :07:47.think it is doable. If only �13 million is on the table perhaps
:07:47. > :07:51.that becomes unattractive to creditors, but if HMRC win the tax
:07:51. > :07:58.case it really does give them considerable voting power. I would
:07:59. > :08:03.like to read something to you which is HMRC's policy on how they treat
:08:03. > :08:09.voluntary arrangements. They refer to rejecting a voluntary
:08:09. > :08:14.arrangement., "We are likely to reject a voluntary arrangement
:08:14. > :08:21.where there is evidence of evasion of statutory liabilities or
:08:21. > :08:28.payments of other creditors whilst withholding sums due to the Crown."
:08:28. > :08:32.My understanding of HMRC's position in relation to EBTs they consider
:08:32. > :08:38.that an evasion of your tax liabilities, so they have a stated
:08:38. > :08:44.policy that. May lead them to reject in any case. So there would
:08:44. > :08:50.be two issues, to be clear. One would be is 5p or 10p in the pound
:08:50. > :08:56.good value for taxpayers? Yes. would be that these EBTs, and we
:08:56. > :09:00.don't approve of them, and I suppose three would be the
:09:00. > :09:04.publicity, do we want to be seen as the tax authorities to be letting a
:09:04. > :09:10.very important Football Club away with this? Yes. It is a huge issue
:09:10. > :09:17.for them I think. There's at least two other clubs currently in
:09:17. > :09:20.administration, both in England. For HMRC they are going to have to
:09:20. > :09:28.consider the message they are delivering not just to football
:09:28. > :09:31.clubs but to other businesses that fail to pay their tax obligations.
:09:32. > :09:38.Potentially the whole moral hazard issue of people saying, "Thank you
:09:38. > :09:41.very much, I will take some of that 10p in the pound as well." Maureen
:09:41. > :09:44.Leslie, thank you. Now, the man who led the
:09:44. > :09:47.prosecution in the Lockerbie case is set to be appointed as a
:09:47. > :09:50.Scottish High Court judge. Lord Colin Boyd was made Solicitor-
:09:50. > :09:52.General in 1997, then promoted to Lord Advocate in 2001 He led the
:09:52. > :09:56.Crown Office prosecution team throughout the Lockerbie trial.
:09:56. > :09:58.It's reported today that he is to be one of a new round of judicial
:09:58. > :10:01.appointments. Last month the SCCRC report into Lockerbie said one of
:10:01. > :10:03.the grounds for a new Megrahi appeal was a suggestion that Colin
:10:03. > :10:10.Boyd's prosecution team had deliberately withheld important
:10:10. > :10:13.information from the defence team. Lord Boyd has denied the suggestion.
:10:13. > :10:16.And at the moment, there is no live legal process in respect of the
:10:16. > :10:26.Lockerbie conviction. I'm joined now by Steven Raeburn, editor of
:10:26. > :10:28.
:10:28. > :10:33.legal magazine The Firm. Before we get on to Colin Boyd, for those of
:10:33. > :10:43.us who are note in imminent take of being appointed as judges remind us
:10:43. > :10:47.The process was revised about ten years ago. The Lord Advocate was
:10:47. > :10:52.just appoint a judge, tap them on the shoulder and that would be that.
:10:52. > :10:56.That was perceived to be a little bit too cosy. The arrangement was
:10:56. > :11:00.overhauled. There's now judicial appointment board. The jobs are
:11:00. > :11:04.advertised. Anybody who feels they have the qualifications can apply.
:11:04. > :11:08.The applications are sifted and a recommendation is made. You have
:11:08. > :11:12.been to be a QC, have you? You're not going to get very far unless
:11:12. > :11:18.you're already in legal circles. The short answer to that is yes.
:11:18. > :11:22.It's not limited to QCs. There's not a requirement, a constraint on
:11:22. > :11:32.who may apply. The intention was to widen it from the usual coatery of
:11:32. > :11:34.suspects. The whole point of the board was to broaden that all. Once
:11:34. > :11:37.they've made the recommendation it goes forward to the First Minister,
:11:37. > :11:44.who puts it forward to the Queen for approval. That's a formal
:11:44. > :11:49.process. That's how it's done. is Colin Boyd a controversial
:11:50. > :11:53.candidate? The short answer is yes. There's never really been a
:11:53. > :11:57.controversial candidate since the judicial appointments board was
:11:57. > :12:04.constituted. They have mostly been just acceptably waved through. For
:12:04. > :12:09.the reasons that you mentioned in the report, and his stewardship of
:12:09. > :12:15.certain cases, you mention the Pan- Am 103 case being notable for its
:12:15. > :12:18.controversies. There was the legacy of the Chokar case which caused the
:12:18. > :12:22.form of the double jeopardy legislation. What was his role in
:12:22. > :12:29.that? He wasn't there at the Genesis of the problem. The
:12:29. > :12:33.conclusion of that was that the entire prosecution process was
:12:33. > :12:38.institutionally racist. It met to massive inquiries and soul
:12:38. > :12:45.searching. He came in at the beginning of the Pan-Am 103 trial
:12:45. > :12:50.and he was in tenure of the Shirley McKey affair, which led to a
:12:50. > :12:53.further inquiry and apologise to the current Justice Minister and
:12:53. > :12:57.the demolition of the fingerprinting apparatus and 78
:12:57. > :13:03.recommendations to get that overhauled. So these three cases
:13:03. > :13:09.really marked out his tenure in the role of Lord Advocate. He had
:13:09. > :13:13.leadership of the prosecution service at that point. Where are
:13:13. > :13:16.the murmurings coming from, is it within the legal community, if I
:13:16. > :13:20.can call it that? There's been a lot of chatter about it since the
:13:20. > :13:24.news was broken this morning. Yes, from within the legal community,
:13:24. > :13:29.from all sides of the community, but also from those that are active
:13:29. > :13:36.campaigners from the outside as well, those that have no direct
:13:36. > :13:42.interest in who becomes a judge, but they have access to grain and
:13:42. > :13:46.crosss to bear. To say he's controversial would be a fair
:13:46. > :13:51.assessment. You were talking a minute ago about wide being the --
:13:51. > :13:56.widening the list of applications, do any of the people who, all of
:13:56. > :13:59.the people who have been suggested look like, there's a lot of people
:14:00. > :14:03.you expect to become judges, don't they? It has been a problem that
:14:03. > :14:07.the judicial appointments board, whilst it has done its level best
:14:07. > :14:13.to have a transparent process instead of a gentleman's club
:14:13. > :14:17.approach to the appointment of the Jew dishery, the actual --
:14:17. > :14:21.judiciary, the actual cross-section of membership has not radically
:14:21. > :14:26.changed in that time period. It may take a generation to bed in. It's
:14:26. > :14:31.not had too long, too much of time to do it. It's only about ten years.
:14:31. > :14:35.The roles don't come up so very often. There is an element of how
:14:35. > :14:39.much has changed. The composition of the board, there are some lay
:14:39. > :14:44.members, people from local Government, but there's the
:14:44. > :14:49.sheriff's principal and senior members of the judiciary on that
:14:49. > :14:53.board, some have close connections to local government and so on. The
:14:53. > :14:59.composition really is not that different from the circles that the
:14:59. > :15:02.Lord Advocate would have moved in in the old regime. Thank you.
:15:02. > :15:07.Finally tonight, one of the happiest aspects of Easter is that
:15:07. > :15:12.we're unlikely to hear much from politicians in the next week or so.
:15:12. > :15:19.Not that they haven't been make a rish hash up in the run up to the
:15:19. > :15:23.holiday break. Easter madness. Bunny rabbits
:15:23. > :15:29.laying eggs and hiding them in the garden. That's what all about? And
:15:29. > :15:36.politicians losing the plot. If the sybolism of Easter is baffling,
:15:36. > :15:39.it's all about ancient fertility rites, so is the behaviour in the
:15:39. > :15:47.party's search for credibility. They're on a kind of political egg
:15:47. > :15:51.hunt. First the Conservatives. Trying to bat away doubts after the
:15:51. > :15:55.Budget was monstered by the media. They're fighting to avoid the
:15:56. > :16:00.perception of aloofness - too well off, too posh. Now possibly the
:16:00. > :16:04.fatal charge of weakness as plans to monitor our electronic
:16:04. > :16:07.communications and staged secret trials are tacked by coalition
:16:07. > :16:12.partners. No wonder David Cameron's was asking for prayers this week.
:16:12. > :16:16.Oh, I nearly forgot, there was the jerry can cock-up. David Cameron
:16:16. > :16:20.spent time or six years trying to get rid of that posh boy image
:16:20. > :16:24.around the schooling and the millionaires in the Cabinet, coming
:16:24. > :16:30.together of the Budget, cutting the tax rate for those earning a great
:16:30. > :16:34.deal of money. The donor sleaze crisis and talk of supers in
:16:34. > :16:38.Downing Street, for �250,000 and then the fuel crisis and talk of
:16:38. > :16:42.Gerry cans in one's garage. It just all added to that feeling of
:16:42. > :16:45.actually same old Tories. I think in Scotland there's a shrugging of
:16:45. > :16:48.shoulders, I'm not sure that anybody bought into the fact that
:16:48. > :16:54.they were anything other than that any way.
:16:54. > :16:59.Talking of happy bunnies, there was one of those in Bradford where
:16:59. > :17:02.George Galloway, didn't he used to be a cat? Wiped the smile off Ed
:17:02. > :17:07.Miliband's face. Instead of enjoying Tory discomfort the Labour
:17:07. > :17:11.leader was forced onto the defensive. Galloway was the only
:17:11. > :17:14.Easter bunny to claim his own Bradford spring. Miliband knows
:17:14. > :17:19.he's struggling to convince voters that he has what it takes. He needs
:17:19. > :17:22.to set out actually who he is, what he would do and why he's on the
:17:22. > :17:30.side of ordinary working people. I think the by-election showed he has
:17:30. > :17:34.a long way to go in terms of portraying himself as a credible
:17:34. > :17:40.alternative Prime Ministerial figure and also said that his party
:17:40. > :17:45.organisation message is in a bit of a mess. There is too a sense of
:17:45. > :17:54.damned if we do, damned if we don't about the Lib Dems. Are they
:17:54. > :17:59.clinging onto the coalition in hope that's it will all come good even
:17:59. > :18:04.as 84,000 families in Scotland lose their tax credit. Junior coalition
:18:04. > :18:07.partners get the became of what goes wrong. Very few of them, it's
:18:07. > :18:11.very difficult to pull off the trick of identifying yourself with
:18:11. > :18:16.delivering something that was good. It happened here in scoxed the
:18:16. > :18:22.Liberal Democrats struggled to get any credit for free personal care
:18:22. > :18:26.for the elderly or on ligs of tuition fees. The credit goes for
:18:26. > :18:31.the big partner in the coalition pwhiel you're saddled with the mess.
:18:31. > :18:34.The SNP, expecting to pick up all the biggest eggs until a candidate
:18:34. > :18:39.spoiled the party with inappropriate remarks on the
:18:39. > :18:45.internet and stole their headlines. There are too many of these
:18:45. > :18:49.accidents now. The situation of a candidate in Labour's Lanarkshire
:18:49. > :18:53.heart land attacking Catholic midwives in an area where they're
:18:53. > :18:56.hoping town seat Labour, in a staging most where the Council
:18:56. > :19:02.elections will be towards the referendum. They need to get a grip
:19:03. > :19:07.of this stuff. Our politicians go into recess hugging their eggs and
:19:07. > :19:13.hoping when they return the Easter madness will have melted.
:19:13. > :19:20.madness will have melted. Tomorrow's front pages now: The
:19:20. > :19:24.herald �134 million debt mountain looms over Rangers FC.