09-05-2025
I tracked down Scottish Labour's London MSP candidate
TO Lewisham Town Hall, south London, there – somewhat improbably – to try and bump into Scottish Labour's candidate for Caithness at next year's Holyrood election.
Some context: Labour have been taking pelters for selecting Eva Kestner, a councillor in London, as their candidate for the Highland seat.
Her current patch is around 700 miles away from the constituency she supposedly wants to represent.
Of course, Kestner knows she has about as much chance of becoming the MSP for Caithness, Sutherland and Ross as I do of becoming pope. Which is to say, remote but not completely impossible.
But that's not what she told me on Wednesday evening. We'd yet to hear from the woman herself despite her taking a fair pasting on social media for being 'parachuted' into the seat last week.
So we decided I'd go out to Lewisham Town Hall for the next annual general meeting of the council, to see if I might be able to grab Kestner for a quick interview while she was heading in.
Eva Kestner is a Labour councillor in London ... running to be an MSP in Caithness, 650 miles away. 🥀
We approached her in London, where she squirmed through questions about the biggest issues facing Caithness - and denied being a paper candidate. — The National (@ScotNational) May 8, 2025
I got off the train and immediately saw a Portobello Brewing Pubco boozer, the Catford Bridge Tavern. Brilliant, I thought, there's a Scottish link right there. Sadly, I later found out that the titular Portobello refers to a part of London, not the sandy bit of Edinburgh.
As I got closer, I spied a solicitor's office under the name 'Morrison and Spowart'. How Scottish can you get? Catford was feeling more and more like home with every step I took.
Perhaps there was some Passport to Pimlico thing going on and Lewisham was actually an exclave of Scotland according to some long-lost treaty from the Wars of Independence. Robert the Bruce used to own property in Tottenham before Edward II nicked it off him, after all.
The prospect of some ancient thane of Catford rattling around my mind, I got to the building and was roused from my daydreams by a small protest which had assembled outside the town hall.
READ MORE: SNP national secretary 'threatens' members amid 'stitch up' claims
They were there to protest Labour's benefits cuts. Lewisham, for the uninitiated, is effectively a one-party state. There is just one opposition councillor, a lonely Green.
I asked around a bit to see if anyone had ever heard of Eva Kestner. Blank looks all round.
A very pushy man tried to sell me a Trotskyist newspaper and produced a card machine when I told him I unfortunately had no cash. He said we thought we should have a general strike and I found myself very much in agreement if it meant he'd take the day off.
Just as I was beginning to lose hope, I felt that instant twinge of recognition as I spied someone out the corner of my eye. Was that … ? Could it be that woman in pink smoking a fag … ?
'Eva!' I shouted, practically running up to her. She had just tossed the dowt and was heading back inside. I began filming, slightly breathless.
Kestner, to her credit, was more game than I'd been expecting. She answered all the questions I put to her and didn't tell me to do one, which is what I'd have done in her shoes.
She insisted she was a 'serious candidate', which given the ridiculousness of our interaction, I think we both knew was a lie. Her local connections? She 'worked for MSPs up there' back in the day.
Game, yes. Convincing, less so. But that is a matter for the good people of Caithness.
When Kestner ran for the equivalent seat in last year's Westminster election, they rewarded her with 3000 votes. She'd have had to double that just to get into second place.
I don't think she'll be hiring a moving van any time soon.
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