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Hello, you're listening to Podlitical BBC Scotland's Politics Podcast.

It is 3 o'clock on Thursday the 16th of November.

I'm Phil Sim, I'm a journalist based at the Scottish Parliament,

and as part of our ongoing series of interview episodes,

we are today joined by...

I'm Ash Regan, and I'm a member of the Scottish Parliament for Edinburgh Eastern,

and I am the Alba Leader of Hollywood.

Hmm, Alba Leader. Check you, that must feel good. Like, you know, not so long after losing a leadership

contest in the S&P, now you're a group leader.

I have to say, it's a welcome feeling to be able to talk about the things that are of importance

to yourself and also to your constituents. And I had got to the point where when I was part of the S&P,

that I was increasingly, I guess, many would say I was a bit of out of step with some of the

views that were being put forward. So it's nice to be able to fully speak about those type of views

and obviously you'll understand that's things like independence and gender reform and so on.

Yeah, and there's no whips looking over your shoulder now. No whips, that's a definite advantage.

Yeah, so I mean, I guess we should maybe rewind a little bit to the start

because, you know, I think possibly the SMP leadership contest,

I know you were a government minister and so on before that,

but that might have been your sort of first big moment

on the national political stage in Scotland, possibly. Or are you saying that people are not watching what the government are doing?

...