Please find below the transcription for the inaugural In the Garden of Edin podcast. Please comment below or contact me through the Twitter and Gmail addresses at the end of the podcast. – Luke
‘Welcome to the inaugural In the Garden of Edin podcast. In the Garden of Edin is a student run political publication based from the Cowgate, and features contributions from students and members of the public from across Scotland and beyond, with the occasional guest contributor. These podcast will be published daily and last at most five minutes. Any and all articles we mention will be included in the description, along with a list of sites for further reading on Scottish politics. Today’s first podcast looks at John McTernan’s ‘Patriots Vote No’ lecture at Summerhall, Edinburgh today (Thursday 10th July). McTernan spoke as part of the National Collective’s Yestival’s lecture series. Yestival: the summer of independence, is taking discussion, live music, performance art, readings and more the length and breadth of Scotland, with their current stint in Edinburgh lasting four days. McTernan previously worked with both Tony Blair and Henry McLeish. He stated that he believes in ‘redistribution across generations, across gender, and across nations, whether that’s to Merseyside or Clydebank’. McTernan stated that Scotland cannot be a member of NATO if nuclear weapons were to be banned in a Scottish constitution, before describing NATO as a ‘nuclear treaty alliance, and a ‘nuclear umbrella’. McTernan’s other comments that were met with hostility from the audience included him claiming that ‘pensioner poverty was eradicated by a labour government’, before adding that he believes ‘there is no way the Tories can get re-elected in the UK’ and that he ‘can guarantee you a labour government’. Perhaps most controversially of all, McTernan stated that ‘there is nothing fundamentally wrong with the UK that would not be solved by a change in government’. During the lecture McTernan distanced himself from scaremongering in saying that ‘I am not part a spin-machine, I’m just a freelance journalist’. Despite the 1979 Scottish referendum and the 2014 Scottish referendum, McTernan told the audience that ‘countries do not have more than one referendum,’ on a issue, and stated that ‘there will never be a (Scottish) referendum again’. During the questions and answer session McTernan informed the audience that he would have ‘call the cyber nats off a long time ago’ and claimed that ‘there is nothing similar on the other side’. This final statement seems to ignore Kathy Wiles likening children standing under a Wings over Scotland banner to the Hitler Youth on twitter recently, resulting in her resigning from her candidacy for Labour in Angus and the death threats received by First Minister Alex Salmond. In other news a live TV debate has been confirmed by STV as taking place on Tuesday 5th August in Glasgow. This debate will take place between First Minister Alex Salmond and Better Together Leader Alistair Darling, in front of an audience of 350 voters. That’s all for podcast number one, thank you listening. Contact me on twitter at lukecampbell6 or email Luke.Gardenofedin2014@gmail.com ‘
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