Swinney concerned his son may one day have to fight in war amid global tensions

Scotland’s First Minister has said he is concerned his teenage son Matthew may have to fight in a war as he expressed “anxiety” at the state of the world.

Since the end of the Second World War, global relations have been governed by a “rules-based international order”, John Swinney said.

But in recent years, international relationships and alliances have frayed and led to tensions across the globe.

Speaking on the BBC’s Political Thinking podcast – released on Friday – the First Minister said he had been brought up surrounded by the idea of losing loved ones to conflict, pointing to his uncle’s death in the final days of the Second World War and its impact on his mother.

“I saw in my mother the agony that she still experienced about the loss of a 21-year-old brother in the last days of the Second World War,” he said.

“All of that is really meaningful for me about the fact that we should cherish what we have experienced since the Second World War, over that period of peace and stability and order, but it does feel much weaker today.”

Asked if he is concerned about the possibility son Matthew could be drawn in to a conflict, the First Minister said: “Yes.

“The risk of conflict has never disappeared, but it has been in locations remote from where we are.

“I think what changed a lot of my thinking was the invasion of Ukraine, because literally within days of the invasion of Ukraine, we began to feel the effects in our own community.

“We felt some economic effects directly and immediately because of energy costs, for example, we then felt the impact where we had to welcome – which we did warmly and enthusiastically – people from Ukraine coming to Scotland as refugees.

“I think what that all did to me was to say this has all come a lot closer to home.

“I worry that the precious inheritance that came to our generation from the suffering of the Second World War is now in jeopardy for future generations.”