Latest Newsnet Podcast Episodes
The woman in charge at Glasgow's George Square
Newsnet Radio Podcast - December 09, 2017 05:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsWhat do you do when you get one of the most powerful women in Scottish local government in front of a microphone? Well you ask her all about the job, what she wants to achieve, and a few of your own hobby-horses too. Like buskers with amplifiers, who are too noisy for Derek Bateman's liking. Our...
From almost our only foreign correspondent
Newsnet Radio Podcast - December 02, 2017 05:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsHow should we in Scotland digest our international news? As the conventional Scottish newspaper industry grapples with the twin forces of intense competition from London titles and the Internet, foreign coverage has been marginalised. One of the few Scottish based journalists to continue to cove...
Notes and impressions from the Catalan front
Newsnet Radio Podcast - November 17, 2017 05:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsScots are watching the Catalan controversy with more than a passing interest. As Madrid and Barcelona slug it out over the region's future status, more than a few people in Scotland are seeking parallels with the UK. Scots writer, author and broadcaster Rachel McCormack lived in Catalunya for se...
Days of chaos on planet Britannia
Newsnet Radio Podcast - November 12, 2017 05:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsWhat’s all the fuss about? Priti Patel drops in on, er, 12 meetings while on “holiday” in Israel, including a friendly chat with the local prime Minister and before she knows it people are making a fuss and insisting she comes back early from a business trip to Kenya. It’s enough to make the ambi...
Author Peter Lynch on the referendum trail
Newsnet Radio Podcast - November 03, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsHow was the 2014 independence referendum for you? It might seem a strange question, but academic and Yes campaigner Dr Peter Lynch has been reflecting on the local campaign he supported, in Edinburgh West. Now he has a new book, IndyRef to ScotRef, Campaigning for Yes, which details his impressio...
Life as a nationalist MP in the Commons
Newsnet Radio Podcast - October 27, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsLast June was an unusually nervous time for the SNP. Riding high in successive post-referendum elections, suddenly majorities were shaky and canvassers were finding life tough at some doorsteps where folk had grown concerned about a Brexit-related indyref2. David Linden was among those in new SNP...
Brexit, Scottish Labour, and the meaning of life
Newsnet Radio Podcast - October 21, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsThe popular Newsnet podcast is back! Apologies, but a spam attack led to unforeseen problems, which resulted in a "lost week" for the podcast. Now we're back, with journalist Maurice Smith in the chair. His guest is Steven Purcell, for Labour politician turned business consultant, but still a kee...
Scottish Labour and its limited options
Newsnet Radio Podcast - September 29, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsIt has been a funny old week for the Labour Party in Scotland. While the UK wonders if it might actually elect Jeremy Corbyn to be Prime Minister, Scottish delegates spent the party conference in Brighton sharpening their knives as their leadership campaign became publicly divisive. Who will win...
Learning to sing a new song for Europe
Newsnet Radio Podcast - September 22, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsAs Theresa May prepared her latest Brexit speech in the bizarrely chosen venue of Florence, Newsnet took time to record a fresh analysis of the European situation. This latest podcast features Kirsty Hughes, head of a new think-tank, The Scottish Centre on European Relations (SCRE), taking a broa...
A Welsh perspective on Brexit and the nations
Newsnet Radio Podcast - September 18, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsWhat does Brexit mean for the devolved nations of Britain? We know so much about the political debate in Scotland, but what about Wales? Unlike Scotland and Northern Ireland, Wales voted by a majority to leave the EU. That was a blow to the nationalist party, Plaid Cymru, and the movement overall...
Casting an eye over global affairs
Newsnet Radio Podcast - September 08, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsWhat is Scotland's place in the world? In the post-indyref, pre Brexit environment, can Scotland's voice be heard amidst the light and heat of global politics? As the EU faces upheaval, Russia flexes its muscles and Trump makes more protectionist noises in Washington, what of the Scottish perspec...
The great Labour / Tory / Brexit crisis, discussed
Newsnet Radio Podcast - September 01, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsAnother week in Scottish politics, another Scottish Labour upheaval with the abrupt resignation of erstwhile leader Kezia Dugdale. Another week in British politics came with more revelations of Tory malice / incompetence, not least in the UK Government’s cack-handed and unlovely handling of the s...
GERS and Scottish economic prospects
Newsnet Radio Podcast - August 26, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsYes, this week witnessed "GERSmas", the annual frenzy that accompanies the economic figures that mean all things to everyone as soon as they are released. GERS - Government Expenditure and Revenues, Scotland -- is an attempt by civil service statisticians to show much tax is raised in Scotland by...
What next for Scottish politics?
Newsnet Radio Podcast - August 11, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsIs it a bird? Is it a plane? No it’s Steven Purcell! Here at Newsnet Studios we have been waiting Steven’s arrival for some time since the June general election. And although it took a while, we think it’s been worth it. Why Steven? Well the former leading Labour figureBrexit was the first to say...
Where next for the independence movement?
Newsnet Radio Podcast - August 04, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsWhat next for the Scottish independence movement? With support apparently stalled in the polls, indy still runs high in terms of public support -- higher, indeed, than current support for the Scottish National Party? The loss of 21 SNP seats, and the apparent surge that favoured the Tories especi...
Working as an MP in these turbulent times
Newsnet Radio Podcast - July 28, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsThis week's keyword is "turbulent". Brexit, Trump, you name it. Turbulent politics and politicians. A turbulent electorate and the social fall-out of the economy, immigration and the rest. Podcast host Maurice Smith invited Chris Stephens, MP for Glasgow South-west, to discuss all this, as well ...
Does Brexit invite a creative response?
Newsnet Radio Podcast - July 22, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsBrexit threatens to undermine the economy, the constitution, and all of our lives in different ways. Is there anything to be said for it? Is there anything to be said for the issue that has dominated the Tory Party for decades, and now engulfs the whole of the UK? How are our politicians respond...
When politics stops making sense
Newsnet Radio Podcast - July 14, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsIt is July, but not quite the silly season. We invited two of Scottish politics' keenest observers to the Newsnet studio to chew over everything - well, most things - that have been going on over recent weeks. Let's just say it covers Russian honeytraps, quotes The Godfather and speculates on eve...
Elliot Bulmer and the need for a Scots constitution
Newsnet Radio Podcast - July 01, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsFirst Minister Nicola Sturgeon may be planning a "reset" on Scottish independence, but what does that mean for those who support the idea? Is it a campaigning reset, mainly to do with the timing of a second referendum, or something more fundamental? Dr Elliot Bulmer, former research director of t...
Brexit anniversary blues
Newsnet Radio Podcast - June 23, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsWoke up this morning… a year on from the day Nigel declared to be “Britain’s independence day!” (Cue cheers of lard faced gents in ill fitting suits)… and what a year it’s been. Chaos, rising prices, a falling pound and a Prime Minister described openly by her own party members as “a dead woman w...
Making sense of the electoral fall-out
Newsnet Radio Podcast - June 16, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsA week on from the election that everyone won (and lost) and its implications are becoming clear. The UK is virtually leadership, the Tories continue attempting to cobble a deal with the DUP and in Scotland there is much debate about the future direction of the independence movement. Robin McAlpi...
First reactions to Theresa May's self inflicted poll
Newsnet Radio Podcast - June 09, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsWell well well.... welcome to 1974 or thereabouts. A dithering Tory PM. Undue influence awarded to a belligerent set of Ulster Unionists. Europe. Where to go next... In the wake of the election result, three weary chaps gathered at Newsnet HQ to chew it all over and spit out some analysis. We inv...
Economics, democracy and the chattering classes
Newsnet Radio Podcast - May 27, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsThis week's podcast is a wide ranging discussion that starts with the theory of economic democracy and takes the listener into more blunt analysis of where Scotland and Britain stand in the UK election campaign. Prof Cumbers joined Derek Bateman and regular contributor, playwright and author Pet...
Onward march of simplistic election politics
Newsnet Radio Podcast - May 20, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsHalfway through the general election campaign, the various party manifestos slipping into the public consciousness, and the opinion polls remain largely unchanged. Is the UK sleepwalking towards a massive Tory majority? Are their Scottish bedfellows going to consolidate the opposition vote north ...
The new broom at Scotland's biggest city council
Newsnet Radio Podcast - May 12, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsSusan Aitken, the woman taking charge of Glasgow, arrived in the Newsnet studio to reflect on her first week at the helm of a council that has been run by Labour for more than 40 years. Elected as an SNP councillor just five years ago, she finds herself now running a minority administration at Gl...
The fine lines between success and failure
Newsnet Radio Podcast - May 05, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsAndrew Tickell enjoys studying failure. The law lecturer, political blogger and media commentator kicked off these theme as part of a conversation about our dearly beloved (unelected) Prime Minister, who has called an election next month in order to award herself some legitimacy. Well that's our ...
Tory Brexit election and what it means for Scotland
Newsnet Radio Podcast - April 28, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsIt's hard to run a weekly political podcast and ignore the fact that Scotland has two elections to undergo over the coming weeks. Scottish council elections are next Thursday (May 4), rapidly overshadowed by Theresa May's long-denied "snap election" of June 8. Scottish academic Dr Peter Lynch, wh...
An election, cor blimey and luv a duck
Newsnet Radio Podcast - April 21, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsCor blimey, turn your back for an instant and before you know it that Theresa May’s gone and called an election! What’s that all about? Didn’t she say there was no need for one until after she’s led Blighty to glorious Brexit negotiation victory? Anyway rest assured she certainly doesn’t think t...
Our media and the shifting sands of foreign affairs
Newsnet Radio Podcast - April 14, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsWe are living in an unpredictable world, with wars in the Middle East, turmoil in Europe, and the Trump ascendancy in the United States. What should we make of all this, and is there a particularly Scottish perspective? Journalist and foreign correspondent David Pratt, a contributor to The Heral...
How to lobby at Holyrood, and other stories
Newsnet Radio Podcast - April 08, 2017 04:00 ★★★★★ - 2 ratingsNicola Sturgeon in the USA, Donald T***p in Florida, MSPs at Holyrood. This week has been a routine one in politics, which led us to discuss the First Minister's trip to the US, and the Scottish Parliament's record in scrutinising the executive. Joining podcast host Maurice Smith this week was re...
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