In conversation with John Swinney MSP, First Minister of Scotland

Inside Briefing with the Institute for Government

Institute for Government

News, Politics, Government

4.6 • 252 Ratings

🗓️ 21 November 2025

⏱️ 64 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Scotland is just six months away from May’s crucial parliamentary election, with First Minister John Swinney preparing to lead the SNP into one of the most unpredictable campaigns since the party entered government almost 19 years ago. On 19 November, the Institute for Government was delighted to welcome Scotland’s First Minister to discuss his priorities ahead of the 2026 Scottish parliament election, the political context in Scotland ahead of the crucial UK budget, and the SNP’s vision for Scotland’s constitutional future. John Swinney was in conversation with Jill Rutter, Senior Fellow at the Institute for Government, followed by a Q&A with the live and online audience. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello everybody and welcome to the Institute for Government.
0:03.0	I'm Jill Rutter. I'm a senior fellow here and I'm substituting for my colleague Akash Pown,
0:08.0	who's program director for our devolution program, and very unfortunately broke his collarbone playing football a couple of weeks ago.
0:17.0	I should probably mention the football since the first minister is here.
0:21.2	I understand there was some match yesterday, and Scotland seems to do rather well.
0:25.2	I'm not sure you'd have rather been at Hamden Park than...
0:28.0	I was there.
0:29.4	You were there.
0:30.2	I was there.
0:30.6	That is quite an impressive managing to do it, and still has a voice, which I think is very, very good.
0:36.8	Anyway, I'm absolutely delighted that we can welcome Scotland's First Minister in person to the IFG.
0:42.3	Mrs Swinney did an event with us before, but had to do it online, so it's absolutely brilliant to have him here.
0:49.3	So just brief background, John Swinney became First Minister in April 2024, having served
0:55.4	in the Scottish Government, including as Deputy First Minister for most of the SNPs
1:00.4	period in power since 2007.
1:03.5	That just seems unbelievably long from somebody who's used to looking at the UK Government,
1:09.3	having joined the SNP at the age of 50, he's elected
1:12.5	the House of Commons in 1997, became an MSP in the first Scottish Parliament election in 1999,
1:18.8	and led the SNP in opposition. Today he's not just here to gloat about the football, but to talk
1:26.0	budgets, talk about things going on in Scotland in
1:30.4	advance of what's going on here next week. So what we're going to do is the following. The
1:35.0	First Minister is going to open with some opening remarks, comments for a bit. Then we're going
	...

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