Don't believe the spin – Davy Russell suffered no 'classism'
DAVY Russell came blinking into the sunlight, wiping soot from his sleeves on Friday morning.
As he emerged from Lanarkshire's last remaining coal pit, the injuries of having suffered through 'classist' abuse during the Hamilton by-election campaign were nothing compared with the honour that awaited him above ground.
He, Davy Russell, was to become a member of the Scottish Parliament. His heart quickened at the thought of Edinburgh's bright lights. Auld Reekie! Would the empty suits understand a bowls-playing, karaoke-crooning, shandy-sipping, authentic, real-deal guy such as he?
I could go on. This is the story that Scottish Labour and some dewy-eyed commentators would have you believe.
But Russell is no working-class hero. By all accounts, he is a pillar of the community in his new constituency of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. This does not make him Keir Hardie reincarnate, leading the charge against the condescension of the Holyrood elite.
(Image: Craig Foy - SNS Group)
Russell had a long career as a top bureaucrat in local government, becoming chums with the Glasgow Labour old boys during their time at the top in Scotland's biggest city. He used to run a business with former Rangers captain Barry Ferguson (above) and Asim Sarwar, brother of Anas.
His style seems more wining and dining in the Ibrox directors' box than watching the dog racing before a few pints and a punch up down the local, or whatever similarly patronising image of 'working-class leisure pursuits' Anas Sarwar has in mind.
Most pundits, myself included, had their arses handed to them on Friday morning after calling the Hamilton by-election badly wrong.
READ MORE: How did Labour win the Hamilton by-election with an 'invisible man' candidate?
But this was an SNP loss, with their vote halving, not a Labour victory, given they were down 3620 votes on their losing score in 2021.
Russell's was a local campaign for local people, though the high drama of an unpredictable campaign – in Morgan McSweeney's back garden – set tongues wagging in Westminster, too.
Scottish Secretary Ian Murray (below) and the Prime Minister both made election pitches on the floor of the House of Commons on Wednesday, each warning about the SNP's plans to downgrade the Wishaw neonatal unit.
Labour's spin machine has it that it is this focus on local issues – apparently Russell spent the night before the vote addressing the Hamilton Accies Supporters Association – wot won it.
If that's the case, then McSweeney's strategy which took Labour to victory on the tightest vote efficiency ever last year is very much still in play.
It's less that Russell won people around to Labour; more that he managed to get most of the people who backed them last time around to do so again while SNP support collapsed.
Scottish Labour are of course perfectly entitled to make the argument that voters rejected the SNP – they did – but not to try to silence their critics by accusing them of 'classism', as Sarwar did at the count in Hamilton.
Criticism was levelled at Russell in the first instance because he ducked media scrutiny and because videos posted by Scottish Labour gave the impression he could barely say his own name without difficulty.
It is not 'elitist' or 'classist' to point out that having some rhetorical skill may be an advantage to an aspiring politician.
It is elitist to suggest that the reason someone comes across as thick is because they are from a working-class town in Scotland. And that's the argument that Hutchesons'-educated Sarwar went with.
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