Leader Profiles: John Swinney

Newscast

BBC

Politics, News

4.4 • 6.4K Ratings

🗓️ 18 June 2024

⏱️ 26 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This bonus episode of Newscast is a profile of the leader of the Scottish National Party and First Minister of Scotland, John Swinney.

Adam and James are joined by Liz Lloyd, former special adviser to John Swinney and Nicola Sturgeon’s chief of staff, to chronicle John Swinney’s early life and political career. They discuss his family life, his long political career with the SNP, and how he kept trying - and failing - to step back from Government.

This episode is part of a series where Newscast profiles each of the leaders of major political parties.

Rishi Sunak: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j477c7 Sir Keir Starmer: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j47dw8 Sir Ed Davey: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p0j4x9cv

You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere

Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Miranda Slade with Sam McLaren. The technical producer was Michael Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The editor is Sam Bonham.

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, music radio podcasts.
0:04.7	Hello, as part of newscasts election cast coverage, we are bringing you these bonus
0:10.1	episodes profiling each of the major party leaders running in the 2024 UK general election.
0:17.0	We've been speaking to journalists who followed their careers and people who know these politicians very well to find out what they are really like.
0:27.0	This episode is all about John Swinney, Scotland's first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party.
0:33.7	60 year old Swinnies had a very long career in politics, including as Deputy First Minister
0:39.6	and also his Education Secretary.
0:41.9	He was sworn in as first minister just two weeks
0:44.9	before the general election was called. In this episode we'll talk about how he
0:49.7	coped after losing the 2014 referendum on Scottish independence, his love of running,
0:56.1	and how he kept trying and failing to step back from government.
1:00.9	We'll cover all of that and more on this bonus episode of Newscast.
1:05.0	Newscast.
1:07.0	Newscast from the BBC.
1:08.0	Well, we're joined now by a friend of the podcast, BBC Scotland editor James
1:13.9	Cook, hi James, hi Adam. I suppose John Swinney's basically been a part of your
1:18.2	entire journalistic career because he's been around for ages. Yeah, he has, that's true,
1:22.3	he's been around for such a long time the first
1:24.2	election I covered was the Perth and can Ross by election in 1995 which was
1:29.0	Anna Cunningham won for the SMP but John Swinney was there on the campaign trail.
1:34.2	And somebody who's worked with him a lot is Liz Lloyd, who's a former special advisor to him and
1:39.0	was Nicholas Sturgeon's chief of staff.
	...

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