the first asian mp in scotland. he trained as a dentist but then he returned to the family business politics. anas sarwar, welcome to political thinking. my pleasure, thanks for having us. now which is more frightening, waiting for the dentist drill or waiting for the verdict of the electorate? definitely waiting for the verdict of the electorate. i mean, the great thing about dentistry is that you get to be in complete control about, you know. the dentist always asks the awkward questions when they are already in the person s mouth doing the treatment, and i used to always have this thing with my patients when they came in, i always used to try and loosen them up, say, you know, don t worry, i m a pain free dentist. i never feel any pain. and, you know, that, that interaction part was what i loved about dentistry and actually the people interaction part is what i love about politics as well. i was going to say. although some people would say being a dentist, really deeply unpopul
of team england. it shows you, i suppose you could spin a positive out of this, his ruthless hunger to make sure he always wins. we were winning that game, i should have you know, after 60 minutes by a clear six goals. actually, he was rather smart in having one of his staff being the referee and in charge of the clock and extended the game by 35 minutes until his team went one goal up and then they blew the whistle. so i have got that ingrained scottish grievance after it, so i welcome a rematch any time. anas sarwar, leader of the scottish labour party, thank you forjoining me. there is an awful lot riding on how anas sarwar handles the next year or so. he knows, keir starmer knows, if they don t get labour s message in scotland right, they won t get into power. perhaps he s hardened by the experience of a father who didn t speak to him for six whole months when he said he didn t want to go into politics.
let me ask you, oil and gas, a big one. you and keir starmer in scotland, he can t keep away from the country now. i think he has been seven or eight times already, which is good. it seems to me if you summarise it rather brutally, you are in favour of new oil and gas fields if they are approved by the conservative party but not if they have to be approved by the labour party, it s like trying to have it all ways, trying to look green on the one hand but to reassure people who get their work, get theirjobs, whose communities are supported by the oil and gas industry in aberdeen and elsewhere in scotland. i will do a nick robinson and say you can flip it and look at it a different way, which is what you said to me earlier on. which is we have a huge opportunity here. i genuinely believe there is going to be a global leader in the green revolution and i want that global leader to be scotland. i want it to be the uk.
in westminster but not holyrood. would you want to follow your father and come down the road from where we are talking to westminster? i want to help us elect more scottish mps, i don t want to be a scottish labour mp. i had a great pleasure of serving him for five years. of serving here for five years. the people of scotland decided that was enough and they wanted a change and i have had the pleasure of being in the scottish parliament since 2016. but i honestly believe we have a job of work to do in scotland that having a strong scottish labour party and i believe, i hope a strong scottish leadership in the labour party, helps us deliver a strong government. including a man who rumour has it, keir starmer, doesn t always play fair. you are talking about football here, opening up old wounds? this is where you get to open up another scottish grievance, where i think you are referring to a five a side football match we had where i was captain of team scotland and keir was captain
the only way it s going to be scotland is if we have the strength of a uk treasury behind it to help us deliver it. i suppose my point to you is you are not satisfying either group here. 0n the one hand, the greens are saying, i thought are saying, i thought you were against oil and gas that now it seems you are in favour as long as rishi sunak approves it. you have people in the oil industry saying, i m hearing all the words about no cliff edge and not turning off the tap, that ain t what it looks like to us. we are seeing oil well after oil well and gas field after gas field close down in the next seven years because 2030 is the target and nothing to replace them. we are not closing by the 2030s. we had said they will have a significant role for decades to come. that gives you the reason why we need the transition. labour s position on our energy revolution is not driven by or guided by whether we want to glue ourselves to the street or whether we want to be luvvies or walkin