Latest news with #by-election
Times
4 days ago
- Politics
- Times
Davy Russell: The Labour candidate who caused upset in Hamilton
Davy Russell seemed an unlikely choice as a by-election candidate for Labour in a marginal seat. Russell, 67, had spent more than 40 years at Glasgow city council as a roads engineer, retiring as director of operational services. The selection itself was controversial. He won by just two votes only after another candidate, the former Western Isles MSP Alasdair Morrison, unusually urged members to support Russell rather than himself. A father and now grandfather, Russell described his victory as 'the biggest high since the birth of my grandson six weeks ago on the day I was selected as the candidate'. Russell's local roots turned out to be his strongest attribute. Born, bred and schooled in the Quarter district in Hamilton, he was a member of a cornucopia of organisations, including the Eddlewood bowling club, playing regularly and amassing a network of connections in the constituency. His community credentials were bolstered even further after he became a deputy lieutenant of Lanarkshire, one of several individuals appointed by the lord-lieutenant — the King's representative in the county — to help carry out public duties. Dame Jackie Baillie, the deputy Scottish Labour leader, said Russell had 'lived and breathed this entire community for the whole of his life'. He combined his local government career with external commercial work as a director of two companies while working at the council. Investors in his Clyde Valley Developments included the former Rangers and Scotland player Barry Ferguson and Asim Sarwar, the brother of the Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar. This business was put into liquidation in 2015. Critics claimed Russell was not the most articulate candidate that Labour could have selected and polls suggested Reform would push Labour into third place. The party were 11-1 outsiders to claim victory with the SNP odds-on favourites when polls opened. But Russell remained resilient, convinced that his party's strategy of being on the ground and knocking on doors would lead to success. During the campaign he was criticised for failing to take part in an STV hustings programme and to debate in public with the other main candidates. He was dubbed the 'invisible man' by the Reform candidate Ross Lambie. 'I would rather spend my time chapping doors,' he said. He even mocked his own alleged aversion to being in the spotlight. When asked by the BBC political editor Glenn Campbell what his favourite song was, Russell said, 'Don't ask me a mountain of questions' — the lyrics to Del Shannon's 1962 hit The Answer to Everything. Russell arriving at the count JANE BARLOW/PA In the end he had the last laugh. Finishing his victory speech at the count on Thursday night, he shouted to his opponent: 'Ross, can you see me now?'
Sky News
4 days ago
- Politics
- Sky News
Starmer will be breathing a sigh of relief after clinching shock victory over SNP and Reform UK
Anything other than a win for Labour would have been a humiliation in this contest. It wasn't any old local by-election - this was a contest where Labour knew it could act as a mini barometer of Sir Keir Starmer's recent U-turn on winter fuel payments and become a test of how popular the politics of Nigel Farage are in Scotland. Labour are power hungry and have, for a long time, set their sights on forming the next Scottish government. The prime minister will this morning be breathing a sigh of relief after clinching this shock victory over the SNP and Reform UK. 1:01 This contest on the outskirts of Glasgow came at a time where Labour had been firefighting and grappling with polling suggesting they had blown their chances of ousting the SNP from power in Edinburgh after almost 20 years. The SNP had a spring in their step during this campaign after a chaotic couple of years. First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney had apparently stemmed the bleeding after the infamous police fraud investigation, endless fallout over gender identity reforms, and last year's general election where they were almost wiped out. This result leaves them no further forward than 12 months ago with questions over the party's strategy. Reform UK is very much in the Scottish picture now, finishing a few hundred votes behind the nationalists. This is a party led by a man who barely registered any support north of the border for many years. A remarkable transformation. The surge in support has spooked many because they know fine well Nigel Farage is only just getting started. One poll had Reform UK forming the next official opposition at Holyrood. After tonight, that might be a tall order but Mr Farage is shaking things up at the expense of the Conservatives. The unpredictable nature of this contest may give us a taste of what is to come.
Arab News
5 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
UK Labour gets rare boost with surprise election win
LONDON: Labour scored a surprise win in a Scottish Parliament by-election on Friday, giving UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer and his government a rare moment of won with 8,559 votes, overturning the comfortable majority of 4,582 earned by the Scottish National Party (SNP) in SNP were favorites going into the election, but saw their vote collapse by almost 17 percent, netting them 7,957 votes and delivering a heavy blow to the party that runs Scotland.'People in Scotland have once again voted for change,' Starmer wrote on X.'Next year there is a chance to turbo charge delivery by putting Labour in power on both sides of the border,' he and his government have seen their popularity plunge since coming to power last secured 31.6 percent of the vote, slightly down on the 2021 they capitalized on a fractured opposition, with the anti-immigration Reform UK party making inroads into Scottish politics for the first time with 26.1 percent of the Conservative party continued its dismal recent electoral record, gaining just six percent of the ballot was held following the death of SNP lawmaker and government minister Christina McKelvie in March.
Sky News
5 days ago
- Business
- Sky News
Starmer will be breathing a sigh of relief to clinch shock victory over SNP and Reform UK
Anything other than a win for Labour would have been a humiliation in this contest. It wasn't any old local by-election - this was a contest where Labour knew it could act as a mini barometer of Sir Keir Starmer's recent U-turn on winter fuel payments and become a test of how popular the politics of Nigel Farage are in Scotland. Labour are power hungry and have, for a long time, set their sights on forming the next Scottish government. The prime minister will this morning be breathing a sigh of relief to clinch this shock victory over the SNP and Reform UK. This contest on the outskirts of Glasgow came at a time where Labour had been firefighting and grappling with polling suggesting they had blown their chances of ousting the SNP from power in Edinburgh after almost 20 years. The SNP had a spring in their step during this campaign after a chaotic couple of years. First Minister and SNP leader John Swinney had apparently stemmed the bleeding after the infamous police fraud investigation, endless fallout over gender identity reforms, and last year's general election where they were almost wiped out. This result leaves them no further forward than 12 months ago with questions over the party's strategy. Reform UK is very much in the Scottish picture now, finishing a few hundred votes behind the nationalists. This is a party led by a man who barely registered any support north of the border for many years. A remarkable transformation. The surge in support has spooked many because they know fine well Nigel Farage is only just getting started. One poll had Reform UK forming the next official opposition at Holyrood. After tonight, that might be a tall order but Mr Farage is shaking things up at the expense of the Conservatives.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
ANDREW PIERCE: Reform's precocious political ingenue will be back, but there is deep trouble at the heart of Farage's party
On Wednesday evening this week, an explosive cry rang out at the London HQ of Reform UK. 'How much longer do we have to put up with Zia?' demanded a senior figure in Nigel Farage 's upstart party. The question should have been heresy. After all, hadn't Muhammad Ziauddin Yusuf, Reform's 38-year-old chairman, only last month masterminded the party's stunning success in the Runcorn by-election, overturning a 14,696 majority? Reform captured one of Labour's safer seats that day, while simultaneously pushing the Tories into fourth place in the county council elections. But despite these successes, the talk among senior Reformers has long been that the outspoken millennial would shoot himself in the foot one day thanks to his unerring ability to speak before he thinks. None, however, dreamt that he would implode within 24 hours of that Wednesday night explosion at Millbank Tower – Reform's nerve centre in what was once the heart of the New Labour machine. Last night, it was clear that Yusuf's tweet about calling Reform's newest and only female MP, Sarah Pochin, 'dumb' for having mused about banning the full-face Islamic burka was one mistake too many. Farage was not impressed. 'There is no room for tall poppies in Reform. There is one leader – and it's Nigel,' a Reform supporter tells me. And though Yusuf's ill-judged comment may have been the catalyst, I can reveal that his fate was sealed in March by his equally inadvisable decision to make an official complaint to the police alleging threatening behaviour by the party's then-MP Rupert Lowe. This explosive allegation was timed to leak on the same day that Reform made a public statement that Lowe's office was being investigated for bullying, with the inevitable result that Lowe, 68 – a popular figure on the Right – was suspended before quitting the party, triggering huge internal strife and hundreds of grassroots resignations. Readers may remember that Lowe's defenestration from Reform was triggered by my interview with him in the Mail in March, at which he questioned whether Farage's 'messianic qualities' would translate into real leadership. Yusuf went to the police the very day that interview appeared; Lowe is now suing senior Reform figures, including Yusuf, for defamation. To lose one senior figure may be regarded as a misfortune – to lose two looks like the most abject carelessness. Some will now inevitably question Farage's judgment in appointing Yusuf, who made £30million from the sale of his upmarket concierge company, in the first place. Farage hired the precocious political ingenue, a former Tory, after Yusuf made a £200,000 donation to Reform and pledged to work full-time without pay. Yet I've long heard talk he was failing to gel with other senior Reformers. He also alienated many grassroot members and minor party officials. Last month, I revealed that Farage was bitterly regretting appointing Yusuf because of his high-handed manner and his evident preference for the TV studio over party HQ. So why did Yusuf call Pochin 'dumb' hours after her maiden question in the Commons? Yusuf, who was born in Scotland, was aghast by her remarks on the burka, which he feared risked scuppering his plans to recruit thousands of Muslim members to Reform. Last night, I'm told Yusuf felt 'angry and humiliated'. And mark my words: this will not be the last we hear from him. The fallout from the brutal treatment of Rupert Lowe continues – and these events speak of deep trouble at the heart of Britain's fastest-growing political movement.
