'By-election fascinating, frustrating and tense to cover'
I was disappointed when he replied that it was Mr Farage's deputy Richard Tice who was heading to Hamilton that Saturday and not Mr Farage himself.
But reassured it was only a select few papers including The Herald - that were being invited - and not the press pack on mass - I regarded the assignment as something of a "semi scoop" and re-arranged my day off.
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Analysis: Is rise of Nigel Farage a threat to the Union?
Reform can 'win Hamilton by-election and take power' in Holyrood
After spending most of the morning and afternoon of Saturday, May 17 in Hamilton speaking to voters and quizzing Mr Farage's number two, I'm glad I did.
It was quite an experience.
First by getting an insight into what voters on the streets were thinking. It was clear they were very divided between the SNP, Labour and Reform. No other party, including the Conservatives, the Lib Dems or the Greens, were even being mentioned by voters as parties they were considering backing.
And secondly by interviewing Mr Tice himself.
The last time he was in Scotland, just weeks earlier, he gave the impression of someone not at all well briefed on what was going on in his party when he could not name the two councillors who had just defected from the Tories to Reform.
This time around, admittedly in more controlled press circumstances, with each of the papers interviewing him one at a time rather than putting questions to him in a "huddle with reporters", he came across as better informed on developments in Scottish politics.
Reform's presence has dominated the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election from very early on.
When the contest was called following the sad death of SNP minister Christina McKelvie from secondary breast cancer in March, the country's top pollsters regarded it as a "two horse race" between the SNP and Labour.
But the success of Reform at local elections in England at the start of May, provided significant momentum for the right wing populist party in the Lanarkshire by-election - and considerably reshaped the race both for the other main parties in the race - the SNP and Labour - and for the media.
It's been fascinating to cover, but also tense and frustrating too.
Tense when Nigel Farage did eventually travel to Scotland last Monday and rounded on my colleague Andrew Learmonth, The Herald's Political Editor, falsely accusing The Herald, of leaking the location of the Reform leader's press conference in Aberdeen to protestors that morning.
And it's been frustrating too.
No journalist wants to spend several hours in a car park waiting for a politician who fails to show up.
But along with my fellow Herald Political Correspondent Rebecca McCurdy and Herald photographer Colin Mearns, this is exactly what I did last Monday, along with around a dozen or so members of the press.
After locking horns in Aberdeen with Mr Learmonth, the Reform leader decided not to meet reporters - and voters - on the streets of Hamilton and instead dodged us to drop in to meet his party's activists at its campaign headquarters in the town.
By the end of the day it was Reform's clashes with the print media which was the news story.
As we head to the Holyrood elections less than a year away I suspect these type of encounters between the media and Mr Farage's party are something we will see more of.
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The Herald Scotland
34 minutes ago
- The Herald Scotland
Not a shot that's been fired across SNP's bows, it's a cruise missile
It's a totemic place for the SNP. In 1967, Winnie Ewing's by-election success in Hamilton shifted the SNP from the periphery of politics. Today, however, the town is less hallowed ground for Scottish nationalists and more field of woe. The story which should be taken from the Hamilton result isn't of Labour's win, but of SNP defeat. A shot hasn't just been fired across the SNP's bows, it's a cruise missile. This was the SNP's battle to lose and lose they did. John Swinney talked up a two-horse race between his party and Reform, dismissing the notion of a Labour win. He looks pretty foolish today. That the SNP could go down so badly to a Labour Party which has riled and alienated voters since Keir Starmer took office is remarkable. Labour won the general election with 34%. Today, that's down across Britain to about 23%. In Hamilton, however, Labour secured almost 32% – barely a change since Starmer took power. The SNP fell nearly 17%, losing a seat previously held on a majority of 4582. These are catastrophic figures for the SNP. Even Reform's rise – it came third on 26% – isn't as significant. Reform's vote in Hamilton broadly replicates its UK-wide support. So what's happened to the SNP? Well, first of all the nationalists are nowhere near as smart as they think they are. For a long time, luck was on their side. Tony Blair's administration was tarnished with war, Gordon Brown was done in by the financial crash, and years of Tory misrule played into nationalist hands. Read more: The SNP could pose as the sane opposition to London. You don't need world-class strategy and policy if your opponents are doing all the hard work for you. Claims that the SNP ran the greatest electoral machine or had the cleverest advisors were guff. However, when you've been in power nearly 20 years you can no longer pretend to be the opposition. That outsider status is working well for Reform, but the SNP are now more status quo than either Labour or Conservatives. They're an enduring symbol now of all the mistakes that the political world has wrought on citizens in recent years. The SNP has never recovered from alienating many of its progressive supporters in the wake of Nicola Sturgeon's resignation. The ensuing leadership contest revealed a level of social conservatism which shocked leftwing voters who had once backed Labour but shifted to the SNP. That – and the poison of multiple scandals – is why the SNP got hammered at the general election. Those voters haven't returned. And nor will they, for what does the SNP offer? There's been failure after failure. The word 'independence' was barely uttered during the recent campaign. If the SNP is scared to speak about independence, what's its purpose? Independence has decoupled from the SNP. The party can no longer rely on Yes voters backing nationalists. Voters long ago saw behind the Wizard of Oz curtain. The SNP managed for years to talk the talk when it came to government – with great rhetoric on climate change, child poverty, education, health and policing – but it never walked the walk. There's only so long voters will tolerate being made to feel gullible. The SNP suffers from 'the boy who cried wolf' syndrome. No matter what it says now, it's just hot air as far as many voters are concerned. The leadership took the people for granted. Evidently, the SNP has tried over the years to mitigate the worst of Westminster's excesses with policies like the Scottish Child Payment, but you can't dine out on that forever. It's like a forgotten film star showing you cuttings of their glory days. What could be more sad? Then there's the boredom factor: the SNP has been in power so long that many fancy a change, just to move the furniture around. The party ran a campaign that focused on its opponents, not on what it could offer the people. Labour ran a highly-local campaign fixed on local concerns. The SNP hierarchy is also increasingly irritating. Angus Robertson's attitude on the BBC's live coverage of the by-election was a masterclass in patrician sneering. The party comes across as entitled and full of its own self-importance. Privilege is not a good look for politicians these days. A few more humble types in prominent positions might serve nationalists better. It's also become such a bloodless party. This isn't to suggest that the SNP embrace outright populism, but if Starmer's managerialism is off-putting, Swinney is close to funereal at times. If the SNP thinks it can hold on to Holyrood at next year's Scottish election by simply giving us more of the same, then Hamilton should be taken as necessary corrective medicine. Quite simply, the people want politicians to make their lives better and the SNP are not doing that. Indeed, the people seem to be saying that even the clunking, u-turning, impossible to like policies of Starmer are more in accord with them than the SNP. That is bad.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
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. You can get the Worst of Westminster delivered straight to you email inbox every Friday at 6pm for FREE by clicking here.
The National
an hour ago
- The National
This result shows the time has arrived for make-or-break move for SNP
We didn't need Professor Curtice to highlight that SNP fortunes haven't improved since the General Election. It was readily apparent to anyone who followed this SNP leadership contesting Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse as a supposed party of 'independence' and yet not relying on it to garner support. At a time when national polling for independence is reckoned to hover around 54%, Swinney's SNP managed to garner just 12% support from Hamilton's electorate (only 29% of those who actually voted). Doesn't this prove beyond any doubt he and his party are getting it woefully wrong? At a time when the independence movement is straining at the leash for real campaigning political leadership, itching to get the campaign into full swing, hasn't the SNP's campaign chief, Jamie Hepburn, signalled indy being kicked down the road once again when in Laura Pollock's report (June 6) he states: 'Next year, we're going into a General Election for the Scottish Parliament ... the fundamental question will be who's forming the next government ... who's going to be the next first minister ... either John Swinney or Anas Sarwar.' READ MORE: Patrick Harvie: Increased UK defence spending only makes war more likely There we have it. This SNP's clear intention is to just play regional politics, presumably to secure their own positions, rather than fight the 2026 election as the de facto referendum the movement demands and the polls suggest the public desires. I suspect the new strategy SNP may be heading towards claiming that the de facto referendum should be at the next General Election and promising to make it so ... just as long as we elect them to Holyrood next year so they can 'deliver' it. Well, let's head that one off at the pass. If 2026 is ignored as the legitimate platform for Scots to determine their national status, or fail to force the referendum our democratic rights deserve, then who doubts the SNP will be soundly defeated and the independence movement will need to start from scratch to fight for independence without them; trust in the SNP decimated and Scotland's independence prospects truly parked for another generation – victory for the Unionists? If Keir Starmer, as seems likely, is about to scapegoat Rachel Reeves to secure his position, isn't it time for the SNP to scapegoat their current leader and his influencers in order to elect a leader in time for 2026 who has independence at heart, has the drive to deliver it and can persuade 54% and rising of Scots that they can do so? Hasn't the Hamilton election result shown the time has arrived for, if no serious independence leadership and drive for it, then no SNP? Jim Taylor Scotland THE loss of the Hamilton by-election to the risibly inept 'Scottish' Labour – a party so devoid of ideas it could barely muster a coherent manifesto – is not merely a setback. It is a catastrophe of the SNP's own making, a fiasco that reeks of complacency, strategic idiocy and the kind of centrist dithering that has come to define John Swinney's leadership. This was an entirely avoidable humiliation. Instead of seizing the moment – with independence support now at a formidable sum – Swinney, that master of inertia, chose to dither. His response? A pledge to wait until 75% of Scots beg for freedom before lifting a finger. One wonders if he imagines history's great emancipators –Washington, Bolívar, even the wretched Garibaldi – paused to consult focus groups before acting. When Starmer, that most unctuous of Westminster careerists, declared he would block any independence referendum, Swinney's silence was deafening. Not a word of defiance, not a hint of resistance to the colonial farce of Section 30. Instead, he opted to align with Labour – a party whose sole distinction from Reform is a marginally more polished veneer of hypocrisy. Both are Unionist to the core, united in their mission to siphon Scotland's wealth southward while offering nothing but condescension in return. The campaign itself was a masterclass in misdirection. Rather than rallying the independence movement with a bold vision, Swinney fixated on Reform – as if thwarting Nigel Farage's band of reactionary clowns was the defining struggle of Scottish nationalism. The result? A muddled, defensive mess that left voters uninspired and Labour undeservedly triumphant. Worse still, Swinney has perpetuated the worst excesses of the Sturgeon era: the cult of secrecy, the slavish deference to corporate interests (see: Flamingo Land's desecration of Loch Lomond) and the systematic sidelining of anyone with a spine. Sturgeon's legacy was to ensure that no competent successor could emerge – only loyalists and mediocrities, of which Swinney is the apotheosis. The truth is stark: the SNP have no plan for independence. No strategy beyond grovelling to Westminster for permission to hold a vote – a humiliation masquerading as diplomacy. It is a spectacle so pitiful it verges on self-parody. Swinney must go. Not with a whimper, but with the swift, decisive exit his failures demand. The independence movement deserves leaders who grasp that freedom is seized, not negotiated – and who possess the courage to act accordingly. Until then, the SNP's decline will continue, and Scotland's potential will remain shackled by the timid and the unimaginative. Alan Hinnrichs Dundee
