Meet Reform's Hamilton candidate: the architect in a T-shirt who vows to ‘drain the bog'
The candidate of the SNP, then just a fringe party, won Hamilton, Lanarkshire, defying the odds by taking the seat off Labour despite it being one of the party's safest constituencies.
The result launched the SNP's rise to power: ever since that by-election, the party has had a continuous MP in Westminster.
Now nearly 60 years later, that same watershed moment could be about to repeat itself because voters in Hamilton, Larkhill and Stonehouse have the opportunity to elect the first Reform UK member to the Scottish parliament.
The candidate is Tory defector Ross Lambie, a 41-year-old architect who switched allegiances in March.
Mr Lambie was elected as a Conservative South Lanarkshire councillor for the Clydesdale South ward in 2022.
He previously stood for the Tories in the 2021 Holyrood election for Central Scotland and in last year's last general election but was unsuccessful on both occasions.
But in March, he along with John Gray, a councillor from Renfrewshire, switched to Reform UK in a provocative stunt filmed alongside Nigel Farage and Richard Tice in a chippy.
Often seen campaigning in a T-shirt and windbreaker as opposed to the more conventional suit and tie, Mr Lambie has had an unorthodox route into politics.
He was raised in a small mining village in South Lanarkshire to working-class parents before going to Glasgow School of Art to study architecture.
Mr Lambie set up his first practice 17 years ago, Ross Alexander Lambie Architects, and his portfolio includes luxury properties in some of the most expensive streets in West London.
He has since moved back to the Scottish countryside with his wife and daughter to run a little farm outside the constituency.
Mr Lambie has focused his campaign on drilling in the north sea for oil since announcing his candidacy for the by-election, called following the death of former SNP MSP Christina McKelvie.
He has also pledged to 'drain the bog' of Holyrood's main parties – Labour, the SNP and the Conservatives – which he claims have 'wasted money on nonsense'.
Mr Farage is pinning his party's first test of electoral viability in the Scottish parliament on Mr Lambie.
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