Hello, I'm Alison Johnston. I'm currently in the Dewar Room in the Scottish Parliament with Professor Keziah Dugdale.

And we're going to have a good discussion this afternoon about issues affecting all of us in politics, really.

Nice to see you, thanks for having me back.

You too. Well, I mean, I feel you're a very welcome and frequent visitor.

It's nice to have you round and about. I think still putting your expertise and knowledge to very good

use. Not too frequent, I hope. You don't want people who never really properly go away after they leave

Parliament. So I just pick my moments and it's a pleasure to have one with you today.

Well, it's lovely to have you here. How are things with you? Good, yeah. So I'm nearly seven

years out of being a member of the Scottish Parliament and spent the last seven years at the University

of Glasgow in a much more academic role. So a big part of what I do now is helping academics

from across the University of Glasgow and across Scotland have greater impact with their research, trying to find ways to use their ideas and their findings in a way that can inform and shape politics to hopefully enhance the quality of debate that happens in this building.

And when you left initially, you went to the John Smith Centre and it's fair to say that we

still have very close links and a great internship program.

The Parliament's been a huge supporter of the John Smith Centre.

So this is a cross-party initiative to try and get more young people engaged in politics

and to create more opportunities for young people to get direct first-hand experience of what

it's like to work in politics, either as a politician or working in the office of an MSP,

doing casework, or working on a particular policy or idea with structured, meaningful, well-paid

internships in this building. So that's been going for several years now and I hear

it's growing from strength to strength. Yeah, well I think it's really important that the Parliament

does whatever it can to provide opportunities. I think particularly for people who might find

it hard to access this world, which can seem quite difficult to get involved in.

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