Aberdeen South

And the Greens, particularly its leader, Zach Polanski, are making a real go for it.

Now, if they had decided to just go ahead with Jackdaw, it could have been that a huge fire point, talking point, kind of similar to the way that it was in Aberdeen South, except reversed.

You know, in Aberdeen South, everyone was like keen on oil and gas and the Tories kind of won by campaigning hard on that single issue.

But in London, you know, where Zach Polanski, you know, has a big following, you know, they're kind of thinking that it could have been the opposite.

You know, maybe, you know, they don't like oil and gas there as much as they do in Aberdeen

Can I make one point, right? So we now have Michael Marra, who is a North East Scotland MSP as Labour Party leader at Holyrood.

We've got Stephen Flynn, who's the Cabinet Secretary for the Economy, Aberdeen South.

We've got, or Aberdeen, Kincardine, Deeside.

We've got Andrew Bowie as the Shadow Secretary for State for Energy.

you do find the Green and Labour do battle it out.

There's a question in a way, I suppose, for Leila, and for me, actually, which is that, so if Leila were living in a seat where the Conservatives are significantly ahead of reform, so my home seat way back in Scotland of Aberdeen South or the seat I represented, Surrey Heath, would Leila in those circumstances vote Conservative in order to prevent Labour, the SNP or the Liberal Democrats winning? And I would have to...

Well, I can't vote now because I'm a peer, but I would have to ask the same question.

Would I consider voting Reform in a seat where the Conservatives have...

Perhaps, but I would have to be a very engaged voter to understand that.

But you

would vote Tory in somewhere like Aberdeen South because...

It would be

They could be-

And look what your party did in, look what your party did in Aberdeen South when it was about drilling.

The Tories won their first seat in 50 years.

It's a very important point.

So here are some of them.

Here's the Conservative MP for Aberdeen South, Douglas Lumsden, with his dog, Norman.

He's

a cross between a Cocker Spaniel and a Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.

And as Paris says, the key here, I think, for Andy Barnum is to try to bridge that gap and come closer to bridging that gap between one and the other.

Because at the moment, no one in the North Sea industry and no one I've spoken to in Aberdeen and the results of the Aberdeen South by-election, which the Conservatives will tell you this, no one thinks the transition's going to happen.

Well, that circles right back to politics, doesn't it? Where is the SNP position on this now? Because we know that it's softened, but I'm still sort of unclear as to what exactly, what position the SNP are taking on this.

I think we're meant to be unclear, Paris, aren't we? I think that's the strategic ambiguity is what John Swinney's trying to do.

But the disadvantage is that I'm not sure how he is prospering politically from the position he's taking on either side of the gap.

Because on one hand, he's got former First Minister Nicola Sturgeon effectively criticising the Scottish government for a leaning back towards the oil and gas industry and not committing itself fully to an accelerated transition to renewable energy in so much as, as Paris rightly points out, they have the levers to do so, which largely they don't, but they do have some planning levers.

But on the other hand, they lost the Aberdeen South by-election and pretty starkly lost it.

It was a thumping victory for the Conservatives.

I do appreciate the strength of interest in this decision, but it would not be appropriate for me to comment any further on either project.

The Conservatives won a by-election in Aberdeen South in June.

Douglas Lumsden was angry at what he saw as more dither and delay from the minister.

He said that every month 1,000 jobs were lost in the UK oil and gas industry.

That's not the same as necessarily warming to Manchesterism, if you know what I mean.

And they obviously had this success in Aberdeen South that has perhaps buoyed them a little.

You're

absolutely right.

And I have to be careful as an Aberdeenian against over-interpreting issues from my birthplace as politically significant.

However...

The Aberdeen South by-election victory earlier this year was the first or the best Conservative by-election victory in Scotland since the 1960s.

It showed that the Conservatives could consolidate a right-wing, in this case, anti-SNP vote, but it could have been an anti-Labour vote.