{"id":705415,"date":"2026-07-22T15:06:15","date_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:06:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/705415\/"},"modified":"2026-07-22T15:06:15","modified_gmt":"2026-07-22T15:06:15","slug":"swinney-says-scottish-and-uk-relations-haemorrhaged-with-douglas-alexander","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/705415\/","title":{"rendered":"Swinney says Scottish and UK relations &#8216;haemorrhaged&#8217; with Douglas Alexander"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Swinney said there had previously been &#8220;excellent cooperation&#8221; between the Scottish government and the Scotland office led by Murray.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">But Alexander&#8217;s arrival coincided with his appointment as joint director of the Scottish Labour Holyrood election campaign to get Swinney out of office. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Swinney said at this point &#8220;relations soured significantly&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The first minister added he had known Alexander for decades since the pair were students at the University of Edinburgh.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I bear nobody any personal ill will, I&#8217;m not interested in that,&#8221; Swinney said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;I am interested in improving the lives of people in Scotland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">&#8220;If I have to battle past a Secretary of State for Scotland that is making life difficult, then it just makes it even more difficult for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A UK government spokesperson said: &#8220;The Secretary of State for Scotland remains committed to working collaboratively and constructively wherever possible with the Scottish government to advance the best interests of the people of Scotland.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Swinney said there had previously been &#8220;excellent cooperation&#8221; between the Scottish government and the Scotland office led by&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":705416,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[59,57,58,50,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-705415","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\/705415","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=705415"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/705415\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/705416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=705415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=705415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=705415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}