20/06/2012 Politics Scotland

Hello and welcome to Politics Scotland. Coming up:

Unemployment in Scotland has dropped for the third month in a

row, but what will it now take to sustain this trend?

With David Cameron and his deputy, Nick Clegg out of the country,

William Hague steps up to the plate for Prime Ministers Questions.

at Westminster the sun is shining and unemployment is down yet again,

but looking further ahead, could the economic storm clouds be

gathering? So unemployment in Scotland has

fallen again. With me now, our business and economy editor,

Douglas Fraser and today's studio commentator, the author and

journalist, David Torrance. Thank you for coming in. Douglas, talk us

through the numbers. The numbers we got relate to the

survey that is carried out of the workforce. This was was February to

April of this year. There were 220 Scots were looking for work during

that period. That's at a fall of 14,000. That leads to us a figure

of 8.2% of the entire workforce looking for work. That's the same

number as for the UK as a whole. The other way of looking at

unemployment, the same survey showed us how many people in jobs.

In Scotland, that was up by 18,000. Both of these look relatively good

compared to what we are seeing in the rest of the UK. There is

another way of counting unemployment, of course, that's the

narrower definition of those on Jobseeker's Allowance. Now that was

up by 400. It is heading in the wrong direction as in the UK.

Another forecast out today for the economy and for jobs? Yes, that

looks back. Three times the Strathclyde University comes out

with a forecast. On growth, it is confirming what we knew. We expect

weak growth. 0.4%. They are pulling back on their expectations of

growth for next year and the year after that, they reckon we will be

in the growth pattern we were used to in better times. They translate

that into the number of jobs that could be lost as a result of weak

growth. They reckon that through towards the end of next year, you

could fin the unemployment numbers going up by over 30,000. It could

get over the 750,000 mark for Scotland.

What is happening in the eurozone. Have they related that to Scotland?

Economists and businesses. That's what they are worried about. They

have been muddling through for a long time. But they asked what if

Greece leaves the eurozone? They have asked what if the whole of the

eurozone reverts back to 17 currencies? The shock would be very,

very significant in terms of of trade and bank lending and in terms

of confidence. It would reverberate around the world. Scots who sell

their products to the United States would be affected. What they reckon

is, if there is a Greek exit, just one country, leaves the eurozone,

that could after three years cost nearly 50,000 jobs in Scotland.

More dramatic, but rather less likely is this idea that the whole

of the eurozone breaks up. That could cost after three years,

144,000 jobs. That's worse than the downturn that we are struggling to

recover from. We are going to the chamber at

Holyrood to hear about a debate on the effect of the employment

picture on women and what's happening to them in the jobs

market. What are the key issues? There has been a problem spotted in

recent months. Because of the Government cuts, women being a

larger part of the public sector workforce, women have been harder

hit by those cuts. Today's figures suggest that that is continuing to

some extent, but not an obvious trend that women are hit by

Government cuts. David, later, we will be coming to

you shortly. But staying on the subject of jobs - I should have

said David. Let's cross to the Holyrood chamber where the debate

is getting women into work and we can join our commentator Sarah

Patterson. This afternoon is part of the

committee's inquiry into women and work as you say. They want to hear

the views of SNPs to take that work forward and Mary Fee who was

speaking on behalf of the Equal Opportunities Committee, she said

the Parliament needs to end gender inequality. She pointed out that

women hold less than a third of the UK's top jobs. They pointed out the

need for good female role models. We have heard that flexible

childcare is one of the stumbling blocks to ended that inequality and

the minister, she talked of her concerns about the high levels of

female unemployment and she announced that the Government would

be working with the STU to formulate new policy. We've had

quite a lot of depressing statistics from all sides of the

chamber, but behind it all is the fundamental question which is why

in a modern Scotland our men -- are men more equal in the workplace? We

can cross live to the chamber. And ask the minister to consider

that women on the edge are included in this and for the equality

opportunities committee to consider the issue of women on the edge?

Thank you. APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

As we have heard, women are being disproportionately affected by the

recession and that's going to be compounded by the policies of the

Westminster Government, particularly with regard to Welfare

Reform. The STU is clearly concerned about this and has been

mentioned before, over the past year women's unemployment increased

by 90% while main unemployment declined. I note that Graeme Smith

says that the STUC looks forward to working with the Scottish

Government. I am delighted that they will be involved in the first

women's employment summit and it sounds an interesting agenda. We

can't rewrite history. The assumptions that have been made,

assumptions that are forgotten at a time of law and the post world war

treatment of women is a clear example of hypocrisy in our society.

Women are more likely to have primary caring responsibilities.

More likely to work part-time. Therefore, more likely to be on

lower paid. More likely to have lower paid and insecure status jobs

and more likely to be lone parents. These are factors which impact

greatly on what we have been discussing. I would like to - I am

grateful to the organisations which have provided briefings. I would

like to refer to an informal briefing provided to me following a

conversation with a young mother in Inverness. A mother of twins who

following a meeting with the other young moth mothers, she would like

me calling her young, provided me information about what their

concerns where. I will tell you about them. They both work for the

NHS and both have a child under one. One has returned to work and the

other hasn't. Their concerns related to, "Flexible working. Lack

of affordable and flexible childcare and only available 6am to

6pm. The requirement to pay a month upfront before a child starts with

the childminder and and nursery. Employer attitudes to reduce hours

on return from maternity leave, not always positive. Complicated

benefits, tax credits system that offers no si cystance to lower --

assistance to lower income families. Need for employers to offer

flexible working to fathers, not just mothers." I am I am grateful

to the convener and we heard a flavour of the problems that

existed there. Indeed, the particular example the convener

alluded to, short notice changes of shift for women who have the

childcare and often care for other family members and the importance

of that was recognised by the fact that it was discussed at the STUC

women's conference. We also heard there is a huge gulf between

employers, agreed policies and what is happening in practise and I am

grateful to the Equality and Human Rights Commission for their

information that work/life balance as well as the request to ask for

flexible working is likely to be given lower priority during the

recession. More than ever, we need strong

trade unions and staff associations to ensure not just that people are

properly represented, but to ensure that hard fought for workplace

gains are not lost. There is much that can be done. I think it was

significant that neither of these two young women knew about the

initiatives from the Scottish Government. So there is information

to get out there. There is a lot to be done and I look forward to the

rest of the debate. APPLAUSE AND CHEERING

This is a very difficult time for women and men, but many problems

have a particular impact on women. Unemployment among women is

increasing. The pay gap persist. Childcare is too expensive.

Flexible working is not widely available and segregation is rife.

Both who are Both horizontal and vertical segregation. It is

sometimes subtle segregation which is is difficult to identify and

remove. The problem is kneeing where to begin. Take ago look at

other countries might be helpful. For example, this week, a

constituent recommended a Norwegian system of parental leave which

reserves some for men and allows for paternal leave to be taken

simultaneously. This would be helpful for women as well as

everyone else and be parter of the family-friendly and flexible

working that is vital for families. When that is not available, women

in our society who suffer, and let's not forget it is the economy

that suffers as well. Other members have referred to the Royal Society

of Edinburgh Report which pointed out that the majority of women with

with qualifications in science and maths are not working in those

areas. They estimate that is costing the economy �170 million a

year. I notice that in the evidence session that the committee held the

NHS was particularly praised. I would go along with that, but I had

another quEpt who had to -- constituent to who had to leave her

job as a nurse in the NHS because she couldn't get the flexible

arrangements she required as a single parent. Affordable, flexible,

high quality childcare is clearly central to all of this. This was

recognised over 20 years ago by women in the greater Pilton area of

my constituency when they identified campaigning for a

childcare centre as central for their ambitions to get out of

poverty and get reasonably paid employment. In fact, a woman who

used that centre actually wrote in a Facebook exchange this morning

with me that the Pilton childcare centre, "Helped me progress. I

would not have been able to work full-time and get my degree without

that project. I will never be able to thank the women who campaigned

for the centre enough." Clearly, that is absolutely central and I am

sure the minister knowsI don't go through these debates without

mentioning that childcare centre. We go now to the garden lobby where

we are joined by Ken Macintosh and Clare Adamson and Willie Rennie.

A report out today is looking at the effect of quantitative easing

and saying if we look to the wider economy here, which dictates what

the job prospects are, the quantitative easing effect is

really so limited that it has no impact and confidence is the issue.

Is that your assessment despite the vast amounts of money going in?

don't think you can see that quantitative easing has had no

effect, but you are right to highlight the fact that there is

still a lack of confidence in the economy. All of us as consumers

know that people are worried about their shopping, about their bills,

nobody is buying for selling houses. Nobody is moving jobs. So yes,

there is a clear problem with lack of confidence and there is no doubt

that there are other measures which this Government should be taking.

The biggest would be to put money in consumers pockets, a cut in VAT

would do that. Alistair Darling has been talking

about borrowing to stimulate the economy. You should be borrowing to

stimulate the economy particularly on infrastructure projects which is

the SNP's argument? Yes, it is our argument. Ed Balls has been put

forward a five-point plan to stimulate the economy which calls

for infrastructure pro jeghts to be -- projects to be brought forward

earlier. If you look at what Obama has done in America, they have got

the economy at a level higher than it was before the recession. We are

still four points below where we were.

Clare Adamson, can we look at the ending to banks to allow them to

bend to businesses? What are the problems do you think with that?

Well, I think, the lack of lending to small businesses has been one of

the barriers to getting out of the economic position that we are in at

the moment and I will say that's why the small business bonus which

has ben benefited 80,000 small businesses in Scotland is important

Freeing important Freeing up that money is important.

If we look at the measure that's come out of Westminster. Do you

have concerns that in fact credit worthy households are unwilling to

borrow anymore money as credit worthy businesses because they have

got things under control and the kind of people coming to the banks

for the money are the sort of people they don't want to give it

I think we have to look at the value of the proposals. I think we

have to take some risk to achieve this. It is interesting you raise

the issue of debt and reluctance of debt. Students in Scotland a

�10,000 better off than those in England so we have to recognise

that people are debt averse and we have to do everything we can to get

money back into the economy. Willie Rennie, have frustrated are you

that the Coalition seems to refuse to go down the line of borrowing?

Everything you do in the economy has a consequence. The

International Monetary Fund report did not say we should borrow more

to spend more on shovel re D projects. -- shovel ready projects.

Some staff is pretty hard to take, some of the proposals. Like cutting

winter fuel payments. None of these things are easy but there are no

easy answers and that is why the government is working hard on the

things like banks lending to businesses and that is a challenge.

If what we hear from the bangs is that the profile of the people who

are going to be borrowing, they are not comfortable lending to and also,

people in credit do not want to borrow because everything is

insecure. Would it not be better to put the money that has gone into

lending for the banks in took infrastructure project? These are

highly complex issues and I recognise the point you are making.

Can you push on a piece of string? Is there any point in pushing it

and dividing it. I can understand problem there. The Treasury is

confident weekend get substantial sums of lower-cost lending into

businesses and households much more readily than we currently are. We

are the world -- the world economy is challenging now. We are not

recommending that we borrow more money. The IMF said that. It is all

about spending enough to stimulate the economy. Let us go to the

unemployment figures out today. What do you read into them? It is a

mixed picture. Any fall in unemployment has to be welcomed but

I suspect they are seasonally down and the underlying trend is a

continued rise in unemployment. What was depressing today was the

confirmation that we have lost 25,000 plus tot -- public sector

jobs over the last year. Listening to the debate in the chamber, it is

interesting to know it, and disappointing, that unemployment

for women in Scotland is higher than in the UK. Let us look at that,

Clare Adamson. There seems to be a specific female dynamic in the fact

that women are often the ones in part-time jobs and that women are

often the ones who seem most disadvantaged when there is a jobs

squeeze. Yes, I think the figures showed that. But there was welcome

news today in the job figures and one Ernst & Young report showing

that confidence in investing in the Scotland is highest in the UK and

that is welcome. We need to take advantage the benefits that

Scotland has at the moment. The introduction of 600 hours of free

child care is vitally important for many, not just for all families but

the most vulnerable families in Scotland. You haven't delivered

yet? The Minister said this afternoon that a bill will be

brought next year but that promise was made five years ago. We will

beat implementing the additional free care places for families. Also,

this year, will we -- we will have a women's jobs summit to examine

how we can encourage businesses to look at women's employment. When we

look at the balance of the loss of jobs in the public sector, is the

balance being picked up in the private sector at all? There is

some pick-up in the private sector and that is how we will get out of

this perception. That is why it is important to provide the levers in

place. And also the things we were talking about in terms of child

care and that is why the UK government is moving at a faster

pace, actually, than the SNP. As a package, this can stimulate the

economy and get people back to work. Thank you. David is here in the

studio. With these numbers, you can have quarterly reports and then

there is a developing trend which is possibly more relevant over a

longer period of time. As Ken Macintosh said, the underlying

message is pretty much the same. There is certainly no compelling

evidence that the economic crisis is over and that Scotland is

emerging from that quickly. As ever with these is -- statistics, you

have people claiming credit. The UK government was first off the mark,

St the statistics were down to UK government policy and within an

hour, the SNP said it was down to their planning and their specific

policies. It is a measure of have fundamentally important this is

because, going into any form of election, jobs is an issue that

speaks to people. Yes, it is true. The SNP also flag up in their press

release the Ernst and Young report in the attractiveness in the UK and

that is a lesson. Despite the continued speculation about the

referendum and so on, Scotland remains the most attractive part of

the UK to do business. I imagine they feel vindicated because it has

been put to them constantly that the uncertainty from the referendum

process will damage business. first minister is in California and

he says they could be a jobs tie up in terms of renewables. Yes, that

is Alex Salmond's big thing. Energy and renewables is something that

really fires him up. I think he told an audience in California

that's got learned could be the centre for renewables. A couple of

days ago, he said that cutting corporation tax to around 20% in

Scotland would make it more attractive to business not just the

UK and Europe but internationally. Getting out of Europe is

interesting and finding markets like China and America? The reasons

are clear. The European context is still pretty grim. On that note,

Alex Salmond, to my knowledge, has not said anything about the

eurozone crisis which is quite strange. He has built up a lot of

kudos in being a politician with an economist background but on this

issue, he has not said anything. key change here. Have you seen

Brave? I have seen the trailer and the excellent BBC news coverage of

it. Do all Highland women behave like that? I should hope not!

will be back shortly. 20:12 Hours Against Hate is one

campaign to challenge races and, sectarianism and sexism. It has

been launched by a Farah Pandith, the US Representative to Muslim

Communities. Secretary Clinton established my

position so that we could work with our embassies around the world,

Muslim and Muslim-majority countries to get to know the next

generation. I am focused on people to people engagement and a Moni

focused on the generation under 30, which is really important. This

demographic makes a huge difference. One false of humanity is Muslim and

most are under 30. Surely your dog is made harder

because of the US and UK foreign policy over the years in Iraq and

Afghanistan. Many young Muslims may be disengaged and may have a hate

just for the West? We have to talk about that in a

particular way. There is an ass and then that exists in the world but

started prior to nine 11th. We completely reject this. There is a

"wee". President Obama has been clear that we are building many

organisations around the world of many faiths. The young generation

is really compelling because what they are saying is something very

precise to this generation that doesn't necessarily get translated

when we talk about things. This generation is more connected then

any other in the world. On Twitter they can send their ideas forward

and the matter. What they say is that they do not want to live with

bigotry and hatred that our parents and grandparents lived with.

Whether it is young people in Beirut, Sarajevo or Stockholm.

you think some Muslims may say you are trying to foment a referee and

-- referee -- reformation? What they are seeing is that they we

need to stand up and speak out when bad things happened. Whether it is

church burnings, an increase in anti-Semitism or any other kind of

races imports extremism or bigotry. I see young people who say they

want to do more and it is very important we do not pigeon hole.

Muslims around the world are very diverse and have a hard time

accepting it is a monolith because it is not. With young people here,

in our most recent race crime incidents in Scotland, they were

down last year but 46% were carried out by people under 20. Is this

surprising? I think young people can be disenfranchised. It is

really important they have a voice. If they do, and if they have an

opportunity to really say what they feel and why they feel it and that

people listen, we might tackle some of these things. When young people

are given a voice, it doesn't find horrible expressions of violence

but, I guess we want to create a Scotland, in fact a world, where

everyone is listened to. We have sectarian issues in Scotland also

and new laws to tackle bigotry at football matches, for example. What

have you learnt from your visit here and do you have any

suggestions that might help us? Doing what you are doing right now

- talking about this and what Maureen is doing on the ground with

communities, the opportunity to visit the school today and hearing

from young people who say they have people of young fates and races in

our community and we are proud of it, it is taking an opportunity to

learn about the other. Each government, each governance

structure around the world is handling this in different ways and

it is up to them to do that but giving the boys to the young people

who are actually doing remarkable and amazing things, can been a

great example to others around the world. Maureen, you are trying to

tackle that in an interface cancel. But it is an interface problem,

isn't it? Sadly, sectarianism exists in most faith communities

and if you really were to examine it, it is when people of any faith

backgrounds say when it -- the way I see the world is right and the

way you treat the world is wrong, is wrong. It can sometimes manifest

itself in sectarian hatred and we want that to stop. People are just

tired of it. It is stupid, it is infantile and it doesn't have a

place in Scotland and, I think, anywhere in the world. When you

engage with people in the world and try to reduce the risk of terrorism,

and we had an example here of the Lockerbie bombing, and one US

senator called the release of the that Lockerbie bomber as an

egregious mistake. We have a robust and wonderful relationship and I

leave it for you to look at the wonderful things the Secretary of

State has said about the relationship we have between our

countries. This campaign is about people. It is not about one country

or another. It is about organic relationships around the world. We

are really honoured to have Scottish NGOs and we are

celebrating the fact we have a new platform to work together on this

campaign. By now to Westminster. With Deputy Nick Clegg in Rio for

the Earth Summit and the Prime Minister at the G20 summit, it was

down to William Hague to take the Account Foreign Secretary confirm

that the UK is the only country in a double dip recession apart from

Italy? The IMF forecast in the coming year the British economy -

well, they may not want to know what is is being said by the IMF.

The Shadow Chancellor, he is not here with his hand gestures, but he

has always said we should take notice of the IMF and they say in

the coming year that the British economy is going to grow faster

than the German or French economy. That next year growth in the

British economy will be similar to that of the United States and twice

that of the eurozone and that would not be happening had we not brought

the excessive deficits and debts under the last Government under

control. Account Secretary of State inform

the house why it is that he wants to see his nurses in Richmond

Yorkshire to be paid less than say nurses doing the same job say in

Richmond Surrey? Well, this is an issue that the pay review bodies

are now examining as the honourable member will know. They will report

next month, but the case for local pay and they will make their

recommendations, we can debate that, the case for local pay was once

made by a Chancellor of the Exchequer who said it makes sense

to recognise that a more considered approach to local and regional

conditions in pay offers the best modern route to full employment in

our country. That Chancellor of the Exchequer was his near neighbour

neighbour. The Government has made clear its

commitment to root out tax avoidance by public officials and

civil servants. Account Deputy Prime Minister - can the Foreign

Secretary make clear... LAUGHTER

Can the Foreign Secretary make clear and the Government will be

robust in rooting out tax avoidance by the corporate sector who do jobs

for Government or are employed by the Government? Absolutely. I won't

mention to the Deputy Prime Minister his slip just now. It is

between ourselves! LAUGHTER

In these four walls! And yes, absolutely. The Chancellor set out

very clearly in the Budget his determination to deal with tax

avoidance and to do so without warning in future and I know if the

Chancellor was here he would say that applies to the corporate

sector as well. There is more work to to do, but

unemployment has reduced in Scotland and for the second year in

a row, Scotland is the best best performing location for foreign

investment in the UK. Would the Foreign Secretary take the

opportunity to congratulate the Scottish Government and Scottish

development international which is the lead agency that secures

foreign direct investments in Well, the honourable member is

right to draw attention to the employment figures which we must

never be complacent and there is always more work to do, but the

right honourable lady didn't ask about these and they show a

quarterly fall in unemployment of 51,000 and they do show the rate of

unemployment coming down and importantly, youth unemployment

coming down by 29,000 in the last quarter, but long-term unemployment

is still still rising and that remains a challenge. Of course,

Scotland as part of the United Kingdom is an attractive place to

invest in and I congratulate many Scottish people and businesses on

their work. They would have harder work to do if Scotland were not

part of the United Kingdom. Let's go over to Westminster and

our correspondent David Porter. Hello, David, there was a lot of of

of yowling today? You know what they say, when the cat's away -

William Hague was taking Prime Minister's Questions. It was quite

a sparky affair. A lot to go on the economy and things like that and to

discuss Prime Minister's Questions and the other big issues affecting

Scotland I am joined by two Scottish MPs, the Scotland office

minister and Mike Weir for the SNP. Unemployment is down again. Do you

think we have turned the corner, that unemployment is on a down ward

path? I wouldn't be complacent enough to

suggest that unemployment is on a permanent downward path. It is

great news that there is 18,000 more people in work in Scotland

this month. That is the third month running. It is good news for the

individuals. It is good news for the families and good news for

Scotland's economy, but there are still very concerning issues

particularly around youth unemployment. That means that both

ourselves and the Scottish Government have to redouble our

efforts which have been good at working together on the issue of

youth unemployment, but that has to remain an important focus for us.

Mike Weir, you will welcome the fact that unemployment is coming

down, but you would like to see more to boost the economy? Indeed.

It is good news that unemployment is coming down, but it is too high.

We need investment in the economy and particular, we need investment

in the infrastructure to create new jobs. That's desperately needed.

The Scottish Government has been arguing for that. There is a list

of projects ready and able to go if the Treasury would release the

purse strings. That's the problem the Scottish has got, the money is

controlled by -- the Scottish Government has got, the money is

controlled by London. We require to get money through the Treasury in

London. The same question to both of you.

Is this the economy and unemployment not one of the

questions where it shouldn't be politics, both the Government in

London and Edinburgh, should be saying whatever other political

political differences we have, we will put them aside. Mike Weir

governments have been working together and they have been to

joint meetings. On unemployment, Scotland continues to work on this

issue, but there are political differences on the fundamentals of

the economy, particularly investment needed in infrastructure,

the Chancellor signalled some U- turns, but there is a long way to

go. If we had the money available for the infrastructure, we could

create more employment in Scotland. That's needed. There is huge urn

certainties -- uncertainties and we have to be aware of these.

I hope that we can continue to work together particularly on the issue

of youth unemployment which as David Miliband acknowledges didn't

start under this Government, there has been underlying issues with

youth unemployment since 2004 and everybody needs to work together on

that. There is politics in this. What Mike and John Swinney don't

acknowledge, they have had �1 billion more in terms of funding

than they anticipated at the time of the Spending Review. And their

so-called shovel ready projects is a mass for for not taking

responsibility for their priorities and decision making. I would rather

see money spent improving the A75 in my constituency than giving

prescriptions to millionaires. These are the choices that the SNP

Government are making. They have got extra resources, but they are

choose to go deploy them in a -- choosing to deploy them that suits

their political agenda. You have a lot of economic leavers

and money. You are not sensible? That's utter nonsense. There is

less money in the Scottish Government budget than there were

prior to the Government coming to power. There is �1 billion more?

There is �1 billion more than you anticipated that you would have in

2010, Mike. Therefore, you have additional money. You have

additional money. That's not the case.

Yes, you have additional money and you have chosen not to spend it on

these projects. One at a time.

The real difference in the Scottish economy, that's what is needed. The

UK Government have got an ideal logical crusade of austerity above

all else. They have seen it is not working. They are not prepared to

release the money and make a real difference and create jobs.

Yesterday, they were prepared to put �1 billion into preparing for

Trident, to save 300 jobs in derby. On the Treasury figures, the money

could have created 50,000 jobs in the economy. That's the difference

in the Scottish Government bringing in investment and the Government

down here, you are on an austerity kick and not taking actions.

The Scottish Government aren't interested in the 6,000 jobs and

many jobs around Faslane and the the jobs that bring into that area,

what they are interested in is sticking to the blame culture where

if anything goes wrong in Scotland, it is the Westminster Government

that has to be trotted out to take the blame. It is a failure, it is a

failure to take responsibility. They have the funds to take forward

those projects and they have chosen to spend the money on other things

and now they seek to blame the Westminster Government. That's

rubbish. It is just what we would expect

from the SNP in that regard. But everybody watching, particularly in

terms of youth unemployment, knows we must work together. The

politicking on that issue cannot be allowed to get in the way of

getting young people out to work. We are going to have to draw it to

a close. Thank you very much. The weather is lovely down here at

Westminster. You think these two would have been nice to each other

as well. Not really is the answer.

Back to David in the studio. The No Campaign launches on Monday. What

do you know? Well, some boring details, but it kicks off just

after 10am in Edinburgh. The main front man has been well trailed as

the former chancellor, Alistair Darling, flanked by Charles Kennedy,

and Annabel Goldie. For people outside, they will say

can this hold together given different objectives? In the

devolution campaign hu a similar sin -- you had a similar scenario.

There will be, "We have these differences. Several things divide

us. But the one thing we are agreed on is the United Kingdom should

remain together, better together, which is the name of the campaign

and that's what we are campaigning for.". What about the styles of the

campaign? We know the Yes Campaign say they want it to be community

based. Do you think that will work in practise and where do you think

the no campaign is on that one? Yes Campaign is pitching itself as

a bottom-up campaign. They say the largest community based

organisation. The constitution does not fire up normal voters. It fires

up people like you and me and fires up the SNP and some of the other

parties, but not at grass-roots level. The No Campaign will pitch

it at a higher level and they have been con dugging a -- conducting a

media war, opinion formers and so on. That's where the emphasis will

be and because people in the Unionist parties are not used to

campaigning on the constitution. They are used to campaigning on

domestic policy issues. The SNP are the opposite.

What about the money? The SNP campaign is rolling in cash. They

have had donations and probably more to campaign. The No Campaign,

there were suggests there were struggling to raise money. The

problem there was they had nothing to give money to. The No Campaign

has only got its act together. David.

-- David, thank you. My pleasure.

A reminder that BBC Scotland are looking for audience members for

the latest in our series of big debates, choosing Scotland's future.