Hamilton by-election result could set-off political earthquake ahead of Holyrood poll
In a close and frequently bitter by-election campaign, the Record has led the way in detailing the twists and turns of a race that could have national repercussions.
By-election campaigns can often appear baffling to those living outwith the constituency.
The focus on hyper-local issues and numerous photo calls held in unfamiliar high streets can leave the rest of the country feeling detached from events on the ground.
But the race to become the next MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse hasn't been like that at all.
The Record has led the way in revealing the twists and turns of a by-election campaign that's likely to have national repercussions. Where Hamilton leads, the rest of the country may soon follow.
With under a year to go until the next Scottish Parliament election, the result on June 5 will give our clearest indication yet on the state of the parties vying for power at Holyrood.
We first told how Labour was hoping to steal a march on its rivals by selecting a candidate with strong connections to the local area in South Lanarkshire.
Davy Russell said he couldn't walk down a Hamilton street without 20 people stopping him to wish his campaign well.
But Labour's decision not to allow him to appear on live TV or radio made it easy for other parties to claim Russell was dodging scrutiny.
We first reported how an STV head-to-head debate involving by-election candidates was unlikely to feature the man standing for Labour.
It's an issue that's dogged Anas Sarwar's party since.
The SNP quickly established itself as the bookies' favourite to win when voters head to the polls on June 5.
Katy Loudon, the Nats' candidate, is an experienced local councillor and previously stood at the 2023 Rutherglen by-election which saw Labour win in a landslide.
The political landscape has shifted since then and, unlike her Labour rival, she is happy to appear on TV and radio.
The big talking point of an increasingly bitter campaign has been Reform UK. And one social media advert in particular.
As we first reported, Nigel Farage's party paid £8,000 for a Facebook ad claiming Sarwar would "prioritise" Scots from south Asian backgrounds. It was based on a speech Anas gave back in 2022 encouraging more Scots-Asians to get involved in politics. He never said the word "prioritise".
Labour and the SNP both branded it racist. But Farage, when questioned about it, double downed and refused to apologise.
John Swinney has warned only his party can stop Reform from securing an unlikely win in Hamilton - a pitch he made directly to Labour voters in an open letter published by the Record last week.
Sarwar today says that such a claim is just "spin and nonsense" from the SNP leader.
Labour insiders believe that local support for their candidate has been underestimated, with Russell receiving a warm welcome on the doorsteps.
In a race as close as this, it's difficult to tell who exactly is out in front. Ultimately, it's for voters to decide.
And in the early hours of Friday morning, Scotland could be waking up to a minor political earthquake.
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The Sun
an hour ago
- The Sun
Clueless Labour's class war against Farage won't stop him… Reform voters care about policies not what school he went to
MEMO to the Labour Party – if you are ever going to stop rampant Reform UK, you will definitely not do it with laughably outdated class warfare. Labour chairman Ellie Reeves dismisses Nigel Farage as 'a privately educated stockbroker and career politician'. 7 7 But with her ham-fisted sneer, Ms Reeves draws unwelcome attention to her own privileged existence. Ellie is an Oxford-educated barrister, the sister of Chancellor Rachel Reeves, the wife of Labour peer Lord Cryer, which makes her Baroness Cryer, and the daughter-in-law of two, er, career politicians. More privilege than you can shake a silver spoon at! Hardly a child of the proletariat, are you, Baroness Cryer? Are you still keeping coal in the bathtub? How are your racing pigeons? See you down the Rat And Trumpet for a game of arrows? Gawd blimey, what a load of nonsense! What a shedload of inverted snobbery. I was educated by the state because there was never another option for the child of a greengrocer and a dinner lady. I do not see my state education as a badge of honour. Who cares if Farage's folks sent him to a private school? The parents of Clement Attlee and Tony Blair also sent their sons to private schools. And Attlee and Blair were both consequential Labour Prime Ministers, arguably the only two this country ever elected. Labour's Baroness Cryer, I respectfully suggest, knows bugger all about the working class of this country. Back in the day, the working class were exhilarated to vote in their millions for Labour's Blair and, more recently, the Conservative Boris Johnson (Eton and Oxford). Sure, you can have your doubts about Reform, and how they are going to pay for some of their big promises. Increasing benefits while slashing taxes — can it really work? And Nigel has to explain how Brexit will work in a world where America is an unreliable ally. But where Farage went to school, or earned a crust before politics, should never come into it. Unthinkable even a few months ago, there is now a path opening up that could whisk Nigel Farage all the way to 10 Downing Street, a path that has been built by disillusion with the first Labour Government since May 2010, and the increasing irrelevance of the Tories, who had 14 years to get it right. Keir Starmer's big state-of-the-nation speech on Thursday, his shirt sleeves neatly rolled up, was astonishing. No mention of Kemi! Starmer treated Nigel Farage (and the Reform MPs who could share a minicab) as the effective leader of His Majesty's Opposition, Starmer's true rival for power at the next General Election. Keir predictably rolled out the fact that his father toiled in a factory. No mention of his knighthood or lucrative career as a human rights lawyer. But Starmer got this right — the UK can't afford another Liz Truss. As the reality dawns that Farage could actually form the next government, he will come under increased scrutiny. Reform's policies The nation must know the bill for Reform's policies. But what Labour will not get away with is painting Farage as an unelectable toff. Because the man has the soul of the British working class on speed dial. For example, most ordinary Brits care about climate change. But I reckon that most of them love Farage's promise — in a country responsible for just one per cent of global emissions — to ditch the self-harming insanity of Net Zero. Unfortunately for Sir Keir, Baroness Cryer and all the silver-spoon socialists like them, working people are not snobs. The working class believes, as Ian Brown of the Stone Roses had it, that it's not where you're from that matters — it's where you're at. TOP marks to Tory Robert Jenrick for bravely confronting ticket cheats on London's lawless underground network. Now that's what I call a Justice spokesman. Sabrina knows Name Of The Game AT first, reports that Sabrina Carpenter is in the running to appear in Mamma Mia! 3 seemed a little unlikely. The Espresso singer was born in 1999, a full 25 years after Abba appeared on the 1974 Eurovision Song Contest, singing an impossibly catchy song in adorably Swedish accents. 7 7 Then you learn that Sabrina has named her cats . . . Benny and Bjorn. Back in the Seventies, music snobs like me turned our noses up at Abba, while secretly humming S.O.S and Mamma Mia behind closed doors. But everybody is an Abba fan now. Sabrina's hamsters are probably called Agnetha and Anni-Frid. HARRY TRIPS AGAIN PRINCE HARRY made a surprise 6,400-mile round trip from his home in Montecito, California, to Shanghai, China, to give a speech on – you have to be kidding me – environmentally friendly travel. Flying across the planet to pontificate about saving the planet? The hypocrisy is off the scale. Harry's means of transport from Los Angeles to Shanghai remain unknown. But assuming that the Duke of Sussex did not travel to China in a hand-carved wooden boat, The Times reported that a first class return flight from LA to Shanghai produces more than 6,311kg of greenhouse emissions, while emissions in a private jet could be anywhere from ten to 100 times higher, depending on the aircraft. Which means that Air Miles Harry has a carbon footprint that is much larger than his brain. HIS MAJ TRUMPS DONALD BACK off, Tango chops! King Charles III did not directly criticise the American president when he – the King of Canada! – opened the Canadian Parliament. 7 No need. Just by being in the Canadian Parliament, and with his gentle, moving 'speech from the throne' in English and French, Charles obliterated Trump's casually graceless threats about making Canada the 51st state of the US. As if nothing had changed, the POTUS was still ranting on social media about how Canada would save itself $61billion if they 'become our cherished 51st state'. 'They are considering the offer!' Trump posted. Er, no they are not, Mr President. The Orange oaf's obsession with the deal is derailing his presidency. Because Donald Trump struggles to understand that some things in this world are just not for sale. DOGS OUT TO HELP DON'T bring your work problems home. It will upset your dog. 7 A team of psychologists at Virginia's Radford University report that dogs showed clear signs of stress when their owners complained about problems at work. 'Dogs are highly sensitive animals who can 'catch' the emotions and feelings of humans,' says the results, published in the journal Scientific Reports. 'They experience increases in stress when their owner does.' I would go further. Dogs are so completely attuned to human emotions that they know how you feel, even if they are not your dog. Our dog Stan died exactly a year ago. And every day since, one or two dogs I have never met before catch my eye and veer towards me, raising their faces as if to say: 'May I be of any assistance?' The study in the journal says that a dog's advanced sense of smell means they can sniff out a rise in cortisol – a hormone released when humans are experiencing profound emotions. At first, I thought it was my imagination. But after a year, I know it is real – dogs understand that I am in mourning for my own dog. And what incredible creatures dogs are – they just want to help. SHOVE YOUR EXCUSE WHEN Brigitte Macron shoved her husband Emmanuel in his brioche-hole, the pint-sized president of France recovered well. Taken aback by Brigitte's firm push in the face, Macron realised the entire world was watching. And smiled and waved. It was only when Macron later insisted that he and his wife were 'simply joking' that he began to look ridiculous. Brigitte shoved Macron where his croissant doesn't shine. Why try to spin it any other way?
Times
2 hours ago
- Times
Out with Reform as it dares to dream of Scottish by-election shock
'When the campaign started, we thought we'd beat the Tories into third and put a bit of pressure on them,' says Ross Lambie, the architect who now dares imagine he might become Reform UK's first member of the Scottish parliament when voters in the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse constituency cast their ballots in the most keenly watched Holyrood by-election in years. 'But after we started canvassing, we realised how super-angry the Labour voters were. They feel betrayed. The depth of anger took us by surprise, and they were also really open to Reform. Particularly now we're putting flesh on the bones of our policies, like scrapping the two-child cap and on the winter fuel allowance.' On the streets of Larkhall, a staunchly Unionist working-class town where Glasgow Rangers FC is the established church, former Labour voters are easily found. Sir Keir Starmer is 'sending the country down the Swanee', says one man who claims to have already voted by post for Reform. 'I don't think any of them are fit to run the country,' says another woman, citing — like many voters here — Labour's benefit cuts and the abolition of winter fuel payments as evidence of the party's willingness to betray those it ostensibly exists to support. The by-election, necessitated by the death of the popular sitting MSP Christina McKelvie, should notionally have been a straightforward contest between Labour and the SNP. McKelvie won the seat with 46 per cent of the vote and a majority of 4,582 in 2021. This is the kind of constituency upon which Labour's hopes of wresting power back from the SNP for the first time since 2007 depend. If Labour cannot win Hamilton, it cannot win Scotland. As such, the by-election is a vital test for the party's Scottish leader, Anas Sarwar. The campaign's 'air war' has been dominated by Reform, most notably via the attention and controversy generated by an advertisement placed on Facebook and Instagram in which the party claimed that while it would always 'stand up' for the people of Hamilton, Larkhall, and Stonehouse, Sarwar would 'prioritise' Scotland's small Scots-Pakistani community. This was, at best, a misrepresentation of remarks Sarwar made at a dinner celebrating the greater presence of south Asian and ethnic minority politicians in Scottish public life. The rumpus generated by what Labour and the SNP agree was an 'openly racist' pitch for nativist votes in a constituency that is almost entirely populated by white people has continued. When Farage declined to apologise for, let alone disavow, the ad, Sarwar labelled him a 'pathetic little man'. Rather than pull the video, as opponents demanded, Farage played it at a press conference being broadcast live on TV. He went on to claim Sarwar had 'introduced sectarianism into Scottish politics' — a suggestion that suggested Reform's leader is not intimately acquainted with the history of Lanarkshire politics — and then released another attack ad, with implied questioning of whether the Scottish Labour leader, born in Glasgow to immigrants from Pakistan, shared British 'values'. Following the Scottish cabinet meeting on Tuesday, senior ministers and special advisers held a special session to discuss how the SNP should approach the final ten days of campaigning. A source close to John Swinney, the first minister, acknowledged the 'risk' in 'talking up' the threat posed by Reform. Some ministers believe focusing on Reform lends Farage's party an unearned legitimacy. SNP insiders believe three outcomes remain possible: a tolerably comfortable SNP victory, an uncomfortably close SNP win, and, less likely but still plausible, a stunning Reform victory. 'Three-way fights in a by-election with a new kid on the block have never been a thing in Scotland so it is difficult to call,' said one veteran SNP campaigner, 'especially when the electorate has deserted its old allegiances.' Even SNP sources allow, however, that voters unhappy with Labour's performance at a UK level are not necessarily enthused by the SNP's record in government in Scotland either. However improbable, a Reform victory would arguably be the biggest shock in a Scottish by-election since Winnie Ewing won Hamilton for the SNP in 1967. That result marked the birth of the modern SNP and is the moment from which its long rise to prominence and power may be dated. Coincidentally, this week's Holyrood by-election covers some of the same territory as Ewing's Westminster triumph. Reform's rise is remarkable. In 2021 the party's candidate won only 58 votes in the constituency; next week everyone agrees the party will win thousands. Opinion polls, meanwhile, suggest that on current trends the party could win about 18 seats in next year's Holyrood election. Any outcome on anything remotely like that scale would be understood as a thundering rebuke to a Scottish political consensus that has hitherto seen Reform as a party of cranks and losers and, still more significantly, as a purely English political phenomenon. Wider — and perhaps grubbier — political considerations are also at play in Hamilton this week. Just as Morgan McSweeney, Starmer's closest aide, sees the upside in framing the next general election as a battle between Labour and Reform as a means by which Labour can destroy the Conservative party, so the SNP appreciates how useful Reform's rise is to their own ambitions. Reform, which has pledged to bring fiscal restraint to local government, has now unveiled plans to reduce the generosity of council staff pension schemes south of the border. Richard Tice, the party's deputy leader, told The Telegraph that councils controlled by Reform would axe final salary schemes and stop offering the perks to new recruits. Staff on existing contracts would also be awarded lower annual pay rises to offset the costs of pension schemes. A new poll for The Sunday Times reveals that support for Scottish independence has risen to 54 per cent, largely as a result of voters' disillusionment with Labour in government and the rise of Reform who, for all their current and recent success in Scotland, are still seen as unwelcome interlopers by many Scottish voters. Independence may be a largely hypothetical issue at present but SNP strategists believe the threat of 'prime minister Farage' can be used to concentrate Scottish minds. Even so, the same poll finds that voters are unenthused by the SNP as it seeks a third decade in power in Edinburgh. Only 33 per cent of Scots are inclined to support the Nationalists, a far cry from the 48 per cent who backed the party at the Holyrood election in 2021. Moreover, today's poll reveals that although Farage, who is due in the country on Monday, has an approval rating in Scotland of -25 he is significantly less unpopular than the prime minister whose rating is -39. • Hamilton by-election result will set the mood for Holyrood 2026 Charlie the labrador joins the Hamilton campaign JEFF J MITCHELL/GETTY IMAGES Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse is precisely the kind of seat Labour would need to win if the party is to have any chance of repeating its stunning successes at last year's general election. Coincidentally, much of the Holyrood constituency is represented at Westminster by McSweeney's wife, Imogen Walker. Conversely, if Reform takes more votes from Unionist parties than from the SNP — and polling strongly suggests this will be the case — then the further fragmentation of the anti-SNP vote can only benefit the nationalists. Senior Labour sources outwardly at least insist they are still 'neck and neck' with the SNP and 'there is not a chance we will finish third'. Some even see some advantage in the race-based controversies that have come to dominate the campaign. 'The absence of this sort of explicit racism in mainstream Scottish politics was, obviously, previously a good thing,' a senior Labour strategist claims. 'But if Reform are going to do it, it means Anas gets to respond to it strongly and to take Farage on. 'A lot of people who were maybe tempted by Reform as a protest vote are now thinking, 'That's racist and I don't want to have anything to do with that'.'
Daily Mail
2 hours ago
- Daily Mail
Campaign 'hate' storm as Swinney says he believes Nigel Farage is a 'racist'
The final weekend of by-election campaigning in Hamilton has descended into a bitter war of words as John Swinney branded Nigel Farage a racist. In a speech to SNP activists today ahead of the critical vote on Thursday, the First Minister accused the Reform UK leader of bringing 'racism and hatred right into the heart' of the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse community, adding: 'It is repugnant and we are going to stand up to it every way we can.' Asked by reporters after the rally if he believed Mr Farage was 'a racist', Mr Swinney emphatically responded: 'Yes'. Pushed on whether he had any concern that branding Mr Farage a racist could prompt a defamation action, the First Minister responded: 'No.' He added: 'He's the leader of his party, he is responsible, I'm responsible for everything the SNP does.' However, a spokesman for Reform hit out that Mr Swinney was 'losing the argument' by going 'for the man and not the ball'. He added that the SNP were in a 'tailspin' ahead of Nigel Farage 's visit to Scotland next week. The row broke out on the tense final weekend of campaigning ahead of the by-election vote on Thursday, prompted by the death of Nationalist MSP Christina McKelvie. Although no official polling has been carried out on the ground for the vote, national surveys ahead of the Holyrood elections for 2026 show that Reform is making inroads with the Scottish electorate. A poll last month found that Reform could become the main opposition party next year, with 21 per cent of the popular vote. Although Nicola Sturgeon had previously asserted on the campaign trail that the race would be between the SNP and Labour, Mr Swinney notably shifted that message in the final days of campaigning. In a letter to voters via a daily newspaper, he appeared to place Reform as the Nationalists' main rival and said: 'If you want to beat Reform, the only way to stop them is to vote SNP.' Speaking today, Mr Swinney said Scottish Labour were 'out' of the race. He told supporters: 'We are the party of hope in Scotland. And what the people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse face on Thursday is a very simple choice. 'The Labour Party campaign is collapsing. They are out of is a real threat. Do not underestimate the scale of the threat that Farage poses in this election.' Mr Farage, who will be in Scotland on Monday has been accused of 'introducing poison into our politics' after his party became embroiled in a race row with Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar at the beginning of last week. An election advert by Reform used an old clip of Mr Sarwar at a Pakistani Independence Day dinner in 2022 and suggested he had said that he would prioritise Pakistani people. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer accused Reform of 'manipulation' of the clip of Mr Sarwar, and said Mr Farage was trying to create a 'toxic divide '. Labour, whose candidate is former roads apprentice Davy Russell, has been warning voters that Reform cannot defeat the SNP and will instead help them win. In another open letter to voters in the Daily Record today, Mr Sarwar claimed that the race is a 'straight contest' between his party and Reform, accusing Mr Farage of being a 'clear and present danger to our country'. He also accused Mr Swinney of using Reform as a 'mask for his failure' and criticised the campaign run by Mr Farage's party. He wrote: 'Throughout this by-election campaign, Reform have tried every dirty trick in the book to drive a wedge to divide this community – but I know you will see right through it.' He added: 'Nigel Farage is a poisonous, pathetic and toxic little man that doesn't understand this community or our country. 'He and his cronies in Reform have spent thousands of pounds spreading bile, misinformation and racial slurs. 'Scotland is my home. I was born here.'
