{"id":560563,"date":"2026-05-01T13:05:46","date_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:05:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/560563\/"},"modified":"2026-05-01T13:05:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-01T13:05:46","slug":"scottish-parliament-election-2026-the-campaign-in-scotland-continues-with-less-than-a-week-until-the-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/560563\/","title":{"rendered":"Scottish Parliament election 2026: The campaign in Scotland continues with less than a week until the vote"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static.files.bbci.co.uk\/core\/website\/assets\/static\/news\/incident-types\/light-mode\/analysis.77b314ef10.svg\" alt=\"Analysis\" height=\"2.5rem\" width=\"9.8125rem\" draggable=\"false\" class=\"ssrcss-h608ny-ContributorImageComponent e2hr5uu0\"\/>Everyone is keen to say this drink is on thempublished at 11:34 BST<\/p>\n<p>11:34 BST<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1l98ssq-Contributor etflsgg2\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/8005f13d-1a56-4158-886c-bc61d9ee66a5.png.webp.webp\" width=\"64\" height=\"64\" class=\"ssrcss-egie1y-Image edrdn950\"\/>Glenn Campbell<br \/>BBC Scotland Political Editor<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Three Scottish party leaders have hurriedly altered their<br \/>\ncampaign plans to reflect the deal to remove tariffs from whisky imports to the<br \/>\nUS.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Both the SNP\u2019s John Swinney and Labour\u2019s Anas Sarwar have<br \/>\nmanaged to get access to whisky distilleries, while the Conservatives&#8217; Russell<br \/>\nFindlay is in a bar.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">They all have different takes on who deserves credit for<br \/>\npersuading the US president to make a special trade arrangement for Scotch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For Labour, the Scottish Secretary Douglas Alexander said<br \/>\nthis was the result of \u201crelentless engagement and negotiation\u201d by the UK<br \/>\ngovernment, \u201copening doors for Scottish exporters across the world\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">To be fair, trade deals are made at UK level and the<br \/>\nprime minister himself raised whisky tariffs with President Trump.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The SNP leader and First Minister John Swinney has<br \/>\npreviously accused the UK government of not giving whisky enough priority in<br \/>\ntrade talks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">He lobbied the president on his two visits to the UK last<br \/>\nyear and travelled to Washington to make the case in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Welcoming the deal, he said that he had made it his<br \/>\n\u201cmission to do everything possible to lift US tariffs on our whisky\u201d and that<br \/>\nthe \u201chard work has paid off\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">To be fair, Swinney did put in a shift and his statement<br \/>\nacknowledges the work of the Scotch Whisky Association and King Charles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The president himself has said it was the King that<br \/>\npersuaded him to change policy in a way that no-one else could.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">For the Conservatives, Russell Findlay &#8211; who opposes both<br \/>\nthe UK and Scottish governments &#8211; is content with that explanation and argues<br \/>\nthat John Swinney has a \u201cbrass neck\u201d to claim credit.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;The republicans within the SNP would do well to<br \/>\nreflect on who we really have to thank,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It is of course possible that the Crown, two<br \/>\ngovernments and industry bodies on both sides of the Atlantic have all played<br \/>\ntheir part.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Everyone is keen to say this drink is on thempublished at 11:34 BST 11:34 BST Glenn CampbellBBC Scotland&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":560564,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-560563","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-kingdom","tag-gb","tag-great-britain","tag-greatbritain","tag-news","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560563","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=560563"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/560563\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/560564"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=560563"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=560563"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=560563"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}