17/05/2017 Reporting Scotland

Here, on BBC One, it's time for the news where you are.

Good evening on Election Reporting Scotland tonight.

The Labour group on Aberdeen council is suspended from the party

after forming a coalition with the Conservatives

And the husband of murdered MP Jo Cox brings his

message of tolerance and understanding to Scotland.

Scottish Labour has suspended all of its councillors in Aberdeen

It comes after they formed a coalition with the Conservatives

against the orders of the party's ruling body.

Party leader Kezia Dugdale said voters had a right to expect

them to defend local services against cuts.

Labour's 5.00 deadline came and went.

Kezia Dugdale demanding the nine Labour councillors remove themselves

I am disappointed because I have been a member of the Labour

Our group took the decision we wanted to go into coalition

because we feel it is best thing for the people of Aberdeen,

we feel that we have negotiated a good deal with our partners

which means that we have anti-austerity means

within the programme that will be brought forward.

The controversial development seen by many as the reason Labour got

a thumping at the local elections but tonight they are back in power,

A Labour Lord Provost was elected, nominated by Conservatives.

The SNP, the biggest party left in opposition.

What have seen is a dark day for democracy, the three

It it was a day of comings and goings, the Tories giving up

council leadership to Labour, despite being the bigger party.

It is not the party with the most councillors that formed

the coalition, but the group is coming together to have a strong

partnership, so with 23 members I think it is fantastic

Amid the turmoil the Liberal Democrats lost a councillor when one

of theirs crossed the chamber to join the independents.

I think there will be anger among a large proportion

They will be angry there is no change.

I am shocked at the behaviour of the Conservative Party and Labour.

One member of the public has made their feelings known

On the campaign trail tonight the Liberal Democrats have

The party leader Tim Farron's called on voters to support them and ensure

they get a choice about Britain's future relationship

with Europe, with the promise of a new EU referendum.

Other measures in the manifesto include proposals to restore housing

benefit for 18 to 21 year olds, as well as ending the freeze

on benefits and putting a penny in the pound in income tax to spend

Well, I'm joined by a panel of top pundits.

Tonight we've got the former Scottish Lib Dem policy convenor,

Siobhan Mathers, the consulting editor of the National,

Richard Walker and the journalist Katie Grant.

Thanks for coming. First to the Liberal Democrat manifesto, is a

Brexit one issue that the Lib Dems can really set themselves aside from

the other parties? I would think that is true but they're not sure

that is good because in the main the idea of conducting another

referendum on Brexit is not terribly attractive to voters. Many remain

voters of which I was one would not welcome another referendum and also

it makes a very difficult negotiation with Europe if Europe is

thinking added a schoolteacher call this away? Enough is enough I think

we need to move forward. Do you agree there would be a sense of

that? I am grateful to the Liberal Democrats to offer some hope as they

claim that they have absolutely no hope of this manifesto into action

because they will not form the next Government and they have ruled out

coalition with the Conservatives and even a coalition with the Labour

Party is unlikely to form a majority so well there are some good points

and the manifesto, mental health improvements are among those, I

think in general there is not a hope in hell that they will be able to

put any of these plans into action. Do you think it is a broad base of

voters that this manifesto is trying to reach out to? The is

traditionally middle-class and highly student. If you look at the

detail of the manifesto there is something for everybody. There is

detail from want than usual grants to banning diesel cars to rolling

back benefit cuts, the problem is that nobody is actually listening to

that detail, they are focusing on the Europe question and here in

Scotland on the constitutional question so it is a little bit

difficult to actually cut through the noise at the moment. I wonder

how liberal it is? There is stuff about voting reforms, introducing

single transferable vote to MPs and House of Lords reformed with the

democratic mandate, do you think those will be popular? I think most

people would find something to agree with them in that but I think they

are not top of most people's priority list. In terms of the

liberal credentials, they have gone back to the liberalisation of

cannabis, the legalisation of cannabis and this time they have

added an economic part of that but it will be raise ?1 billion, not

quite sure what effect it will have on the economy if everyone is

stunned and unable to get out of bed. And what about the penny in the

pound on income tax which with that be enough? I would really like a

political party not to talk about the NHS so much in terms of money

because we can put all the money in the universe into the NHS and it

still would work properly because that is the way life is. I would

think it is far better if the Democrats had really thought about

how to have a different attitude towards the NHS, and we only to

think about the NHS so any political party, not just the Liberal

Democrats will stop this is an old message that the bulk of more to the

NHS but at every election it comes up as an issue so this is giving it

for money isn't really the way forward. The wider picture, the Lib

Dems now have a new leader, the coalition is now a couple of years

behind them but have they will they be able to shake off that legacy?

It's difficult. Political memories are wrong, there are those voters

out there who still have not forgiven in the party for the

coalition with the Conservatives but at least in ten Brexit does provide

a new agenda and the party is finding there are plenty out there

who are disappointed with Brexit and the failure of the Conservatives and

Labour to really stand up for Brexit. There are a core of voters

and remember the Lib Dems are not expecting to win a majority, there

is enough to increase the number of MPs. Moving on to the Labour story,

how do you think the story in Aberdeen is making Labour look?

Disastrous for them. I think Kezia Dugdale has done the right thing but

it speaks volumes about the discipline within the party that

Labour councillors can just ignore the party ruling and form a Cornish

and with the Conservatives and it speaks volumes about the standard of

candidate they had in those elections at the first sniff of

power they could deal the ditch the principles and form an alliance and

I think what is welcome to the obvious conclusion. A quick reaction

from you on Aberdeen kitty. I agree, this is not a surprise from the

Labour Party is in disarray, how they think it will help the general

election prospects, I have no idea. Thank you. Sock

More from the campaign trail coming up, but first Catriona has

Thanks, Laura. Good evening.

Unemployment in Scotland has fallen by 14,000 in the last

But the world of work is changing, with more people now earning money

through the so-called "gig economy" where one-off services like taxi

rides and takeaway meals are arranged by mobile phone.

Our political correspondent Andrew Kerr has this report.

This massage therapist is enjoying her new career

Being self-employed, Elizabeth is her own boss.

She doesn't receive sick pay or paid holidays but there is freedom.

I think if I sat down with somebody, and spoke about the plus points

and also the challenges of being self-employed,

to being on a payroll we could probably come up

we the same amount of items on each list, albeit

There has been a rise in traditional self-employment like this

At the swipe of a screen, with the new gig economy.

Big companies link workers to customers for a one officer

It's sold as giving workers more control but the reality for an Uber

We don't set our own fare, we are not in control

of our own earnings, we have to do it the Uber

But on the highways of Glasgow, Uber put us in touch with one driver

who sees the benefits of working for himself and the company.

You press a button you are working, you press a button and you stop

working, nobody is there telling you what to do.

That is the foundation of flexible working as far as I'm concerned.

There is currently an independent review into the gig economy.

In this election the parties are making various promises

round increasing workers' right and better pay.

Budding Chancellors will want to make sure they don't

miss out on tax revenue as self employment increases.

If the next UK Government tries to address some of these issues

round differences in tax treatment, between the self-employed

and employees that has to go alongside changes in the employment

rights of people working in the self employment sector.

So as office staff enjoy a lunchtime rest in George Square,

politicians in this general election campaign are working hard,

to try to adapt to this changing world of employment.

A child's travel mug has been withdrawn from sale across Europe

by the Disney Store after a seven year old girl from Kirkintilloch

Hospital staff had to use bolt cutters, a hacksaw

and a drill to remove the screw-top cup from Megan Donald's mouth.

The company said it was an unfortunate incident

that they had taken seriously by immediately stopping sales

A man who planned to end his life at a Switzerland suicide clinic next

month is to reconsider the decision after being encouraged by a fellow

56 year old Colin Campbell from Inverness says he feels more

optimistic after being contacted by a local woman whose condition

Both have called for more support for those affected

My situation was extremely bleak. And this has given me is some kind

of optimism which I definitely didn't have. I could see Colin the

way I used to be and I just wanted to give him every chance.

Football, and Inverness are still in with a chance

of avoiding automatic relegation from the Premiership,

Elsewhere, Aberdeen beat Rangers at Ibrox,

It's almost a year since MP Jo Cox was murdered in her

constituency in West Yorkshire by a far right extremist.

At the time, her husband, Brendan, warned of the dangers of allowing

intimidation and abuse to subvert the political process.

Today he brought that message to Scotland.

Leaders of all the main parties broke off from campaigning

to meet him and hear his message of tolerance and understanding.

For Election Reporting Scotland, he also spoke to Stephen Jardine.

Brendan Cox, it is a year since your wife, Jo has died, what have the

last few months been like? The hardest of our lives and we feel we

are in the early stages of it. We are still coming to terms with

what's happened and the permanence of it, which, I think, you don't

fully appreciate at the beginning. And the grief keeps coming. It keeps

coming in waves. But the kids are resilient, and they are still

enjoying life. The thing I said when Jo died, the most important thing I

wanted to do is make sure our kids felt loved and secure which they do.

The response of the public right across the country has been immense

which has given us some solace. I've said once or twice that on that day,

when Jo was killed, there was one act of supreme evil but, since then,

there have been tens of thousands, millions of acts of compassion from

people we didn't know, from people we do know, that have given us

incredible kindness and generosity and have helped us cope with this.

In Scotland, politics became particularly polarised during the

independence referendum campaign. When does passion in politics become

a problem? Passion in politics isn't a problem at all. I think hatred in

politics is a problem. At when you start to build group -based

identities of hating the person not in your group, whether it's people

that don't vote your way, whether it is the independence referendum,

Brexit, the colour of your skin, your faith, that is the problem, we

have to drive hatred out while maintaining passion. We disagree on

many things, on which football team we support or which way we vote in a

referendum, that's normal. What isn't normal is that turning to

hatred, people fixating on that and defining the other as the enemy. And

I think sometimes certainly in recent years politics has fallen

into that trap too often and I hope in this election and in future

referendums, and in public life, we get better at the passionate without

allowing hatred from the extremes to seep in because that isn't what

resonates with people. It's a tiny minority of extremists but they are

given too much purchase in the political debate. Thinking about

social media, Brendan, there is a responsibility on all of us when it

comes to behave you. Absolutely and I think social media sometimes

because of the anonymity of it, sometimes because how should you

have to be with responses, it can polarised in an unhelpful way.

Brendan Cox, thank you very much. Let's talk to our politicians now,

we've got Scottish Labour candidate I'm joined by the SNP

candidate Hannah Bardell, the Scottish Lib Dem

MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton, and the Scottish Conservative

MSP Graham Simpson. Good evening to you all and thanks

for joining us. Blair, people in Aberdeen have been left with no

representation on the council as a result of the suspensions, is it

serving Labour voters well? It is one of the situations where we as a

Labour Party have to consider to work with parties we disagree with.

The Labour Party is sending a signal that we won't put local services in

jeopardy. There is a pretty strong disagreement between the part be

locally and nationally but I think Kezia Dugdale did the right thing to

say we are not going to countenance deals with people who are going to

cut local services, which is what people would expect from the Labour

Party. After the 2012 local elections, there was a Labour-

conservative- independent coalition, so why is it now OK now? There are

deals all the way across Scotland between different parties, who have

different worldviews but the principle that we set out which is

right after such a hit a few years of cuts from both Westminster and

the Scottish government that we are clear we won't do deals with parties

that are going to cut local services. Graham Simpson, what is

your reaction to today's suspensions? I think it is

absolutely extraordinary what's happened. My own party would not

interfere with anything, any of our council group stood because we

believe in localism. What Kezia Dugdale has done today is strive

coach and horses through that concept in the Labour Party. It is

quite extraordinary that Labour are prepared to do deals with the SNP in

certain councils. Kezia Dugdale is saying that the Unionist coalition

is not OK. And the voters throughout Scotland and in Aberdeen will be

utterly confused by this. Let me ask you something the BBC has heard

about this evening about the head of the Tory manifesto, that Theresa May

is going to make a commitment to bring immigration down to the tens

of thousands target. I wonder what your reaction is to that and the

justification to that? Obviously, I haven't seen the manifesto. Theresa

May will know what is in it and I don't. But that sounds like a good

target to aim for. It has been a target missed since 2010. When we

leave the European Union, we will be able to control immigration far

better than we've been able to up until now. There is a call for

higher immigration in Scotland, it is something that has been

encouraged for the economy here so would voters not welcome it here? We

are part of the UK and Blair McDougall and I've fought on the

same side in the campaign to keep us in the United Kingdom. Voters in

Scotland agreed with us then, so I think if we are part of the United

Kingdom, then the immigration policy has to be UK wide. Kebab, the

Liberal Democrats launch their manifesto today with the call for a

second EU referendum on the Brexited deal that ends up being offered, is

its democratic to ignore that first vote? On the 23rd of June last year

the British people voted by a small majority for a departure but not a

destination. Within hours we saw a lot of the prospectus from the leave

campaign evaporate. The ?350 million for the NHS on the side of the bus

was gone by the morning. We believe when the terms of this deal are in

place, the people best place to decide on those terms are the

British people themselves. They started this process and they should

finish it and they should be offered a second option on the ballot paper

which is to remain in the European Union and that's what my party will

campaign for. Do you think that might affect the negotiation

process, though, if it is deemed the UK is dipping its toe in? Not in the

slightest. It is a sensible and democratic process by which Britain

can get to decide what Britain wants to do. People should be given the

opportunity to be asked again, is it really what you meant when you told

us he wanted Brexit? When the reality sets in when we see

ourselves potentially adrift, isolated without a trade agreement,

with all the implication that means for our expats, for people that live

here, they will actually want to think again and not leave it to

compile Tory MPs at the top of the Conservative government. The SNP

oppose Brexit, Hannah Bardell, so would you support a second vote? We

put in our manifesto in the 2016 Scottish elections that if Scotland

was taken out of the EU against its well, we would seek to give people

in Scotland a choice between a hard Tory Brexit and a choice of Scotland

remaining in the single market. We've just seen I think a very

moving piece by Brendan Cox and I think with everything happening it

is important to take a moment and reflect where we are. I actually sat

alongside Jo Cox in the House of Commons and I took part in the

target of war with her. I didn't know her well but I was able to be

in the same choir is her and we owe it to her memory to say where we can

find common cause, I'm looking at the manifesto Pramac of the various

parties, we will disagree on many things, but there will be things we

can agree on and work together on. You don't have to always be in a

formal coalition. The SNP went into a minority coalition in 2007 and we

were able to work together with other parties. The public want to

see that and they understand there will be disagreements and

differences of opinion but it is about having a respectful

disagreement. The question I was putting to you is when we have a

Brexit deal, would it make sense to have a second vote on that, to give

people a boat on the actual outcome on Brexit? That doesn't respect,

performing, the way voted in Scotland. What is important is that

Scotland's place in the single market is protected, and that is

what we have very much proposed, and that's what we will continue to

stand up for in Westminster. We have a general election upon us, and we

have, unfortunately, a government that doesn't have a plan going into

Brexit. It didn't put forward a proper prospectus and we know

already it has no plan if there is no deal which is a terrifying

prospect. That's why the SNP wants to protect Scotland's place and

Nicola Sturgeon said clearly that if we win the election in Scotland, we

will have a mandate to put on the table. Thank you for joining us.

And that's Election Reporting Scotland.

The Conservative UK manifesto, Scottish Lib Dem leader

Willie Rennie is on Good Morning Scotland, and the First Leader's

So, join us again tomorrow night at 10:30pm for all of that.

Largely dry conditions across the country with some heavy showers in

the south-west and drifting northwards but by tomorrow morning

most of those will have gone. Perhaps if you morning showers for

the Hebrides, elsewhere reasonably dry tomorrow, some sunny spells,

some cloud, some passing showers through Lanarkshire and

Stirlingshire and Highland Perthshire but temperatures tomorrow

morning, 9-10, with the sunshine it is a pleasant start. The showers

towards sky and the Western Isles, drifting inland through the day,

perhaps some light showers to start things off across the Northern

Isles. Heading through tomorrow, we see the showers in the west edging

eastwards. They will increase in number and also in intensity

becoming quite heavy across the north-east for a time by early to

mid afternoon. South of the border, a few showers around but probably

unlucky if you catch one. Plenty of fine weather with those showers, and

temperatures up to 20 in the south-east. Plenty of showers for

Northern Ireland. Let's take a closer look at home. By

mid-afternoon, 4pm, those heavier showers across the Northeast, Halen

fund in the mix so if you get caught in one, difficult conditions on the

roads. A few heavy showers edging into the south-west as well by the

end of the day, but they ease off heading overnight. Looking ahead

towards Friday, low pressure out in the Atlantic feeding in some showers

into the West. It edges up the North Sea giving wet weather for the East

of Scotland. The North of England wet and East Anglia as well. Taking

a closer look at us by mid-afternoon, some light showers

but there's the rain clipping the East Coast. If you avoid the rain

and showers, reasonably With the general election

approaching, with the leaders from six

Scottish political parties going head-to-head before you, the voters,

in the Scottish Leaders' Debate. with the leaders from six

Scottish political parties going head-to-head before you, the voters,

in the Scottish Leaders' Debate.