Green Room Deals
The Lesley Riddoch Podcast
Lesley Riddoch and Fraser Thompson
4.6 • 274 Ratings
🗓️ 21 April 2026
⏱️ 74 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this week’s episode, we look at Kier Starmer’s ongoing Mandelson woes. We discuss the wildly oscillating Scottish opinion polls and MRP extrapolations that come from them and what they mean for the Scottish election campaign and the future of the independence movement. We discuss what you need to get over the line on the regional list and the prospect of smaller independence-supporting parties.
We also look at the brouhaha which got up around Labour and Reform and whether Anas Sarwar had asked Malcolm Offard to do a deal to keep the SNP out of power. We take a dig into the recent party manifestos and the reaction to some of the more eye-catching ideas.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Did Keir Starmour managed to escape with that explanation to the comments, |
| 0:04.2 | or is he still really stuck in the back row? |
| 0:07.5 | Will Mandelson really see off Keir Stammer this year after the May elections? |
| 0:12.4 | How are the polls looking on that? |
| 0:13.8 | They seem to swing between an SNP majority in their own right |
| 0:17.1 | and then them not even winning an independence majority with the Greens. |
| 0:21.9 | It's a strange old thing, and not a strange, however, as the bedfellows, Anasarwar and Malcolm offered, still spluttering |
| 0:28.7 | around that they didn't actually have that intention to stitch up the electorate. We look at all |
| 0:33.9 | of that in the podcast and much more besides those are the headlines. |
| 0:39.1 | Let's have the podcast now. |
| 0:40.4 | Well, hi folks and welcome to this week's Leslie Riddah podcast. |
| 0:44.6 | Leslie, are you doing any deals with Anas Sarwar? |
| 0:47.3 | Any sort of around talks we need to be aware of? |
| 0:50.3 | What's your green room patter? |
| 0:52.9 | Well, actually, I did have a not a green room experience. I mentioned it in the column I wrote last week when Anna did indeed come bounding up to me. And I was trying to replace it in time, but he was elected leader in 2021, I think. And it was just before he was leader, but it was pretty obvious he was going to get the job. And he'd got in touch |
| 1:11.0 | with me, I think he'd emailed to say, you know, could we have a little chat in Holyrood? And I thought, well, you know, no point, mate, but, you know, let's not be churlish. And then I was in anyway doing a BBC kind of First Minister's questions, you know, analysis thing. So I did have this chat with him. It was absolutely ludicrous |
| 1:28.7 | because he was basically saying, |
| 1:30.5 | you know, you've been a... analysis thing. So I did have this chat with him. It was absolutely ludicrous because he was |
| 1:29.4 | basically saying, you know, you've been a big friend, a progressive thought and, you know, you're on |
| 1:34.7 | the left of stuff and you're a natural labor voter and, you know, really it's time for you |
| 1:39.3 | to come back to the fold and whatever. And I just thought, God Almighty, do you not realize what we've all |
| 1:43.9 | been through, |
... |
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