Last night’s televised hustings entrenched the battle lines already drawn in the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. Labour candidate and local teacher Michael Shanks sought to pin unpopular SNP policies, including council tax rises and lengthy NHS waiting times, on the Nationalists’ Katy Loudon, a South Lanarkshire councillor. Loudon retreaded her two-point case for giving the SNP another chance: Westminster Tories had created a cost-of-living crisis and Labour was no different from them. For his part, the Conservatives’ Thomas Kerr tried to paint Loudon as too deferential to the SNP hierarchy while accusing Labour of having ‘more flip-flops than Blackpool beach’.
The by-election was prompted by a recall petition in which constituents ousted former SNP MP Margaret Ferrier. Ferrier had been suspended from the Commons for 30 days for travelling from London to Scotland on public transport during the pandemic, despite knowing she was infected with Covid-19. The hustings aired on Scotland Tonight, a current affairs programme from Scotland’s channel three franchise STV, and were moderated by political broadcaster Colin Mackay. The Liberal Democrat candidate Gloria Adebo chose not to participate but provided a video message.
There was no knockout blow landed or sustained but the cross-examination section brought out some of the sharpness that has defined the contest so far, with exchanges between Loudon and Shanks particularly terse. Shanks performed strongly, positioning himself against the Tories’ economic record at Westminster and the SNP’s policies on council tax and environmental levies as well as its management of NHS Scotland. Challenged on his previous support for the SNP’s Gender Recognition Reform Bill, he conceded the legislation was flawed but said he continued to support gender law reform. Given the unpopularity of that position with the voters, it suggests a bit of principle on his part.
Shanks was polished, articulate, disciplined in his messaging, and looked and sounded the part of a soft-left Labour MP. Loudon, on the other hand, struggled. Her answers were often rushed and seemed nervous at times, as though she was eager for the broadcast to be over. Still, she managed to drum home her twin message that the Tories ‘crashed the economy’ and Labour was a pale imitation of the government. She repeatedly dodged questions on SNP tax rises, congestion charging and Glasgow’s low-emission zone.
Grilled on Scottish government plans that could lead to a quarter of Scottish households paying more in council tax, Loudon accused Tory candidate Kerr of wanting ‘people like Rishi Sunak, sitting in a Band-H-or-above house, to be protected’. Sunak doesn’t pay council tax in Scotland, so the changes wouldn’t apply to him. For his part, Kerr interrogated both Shanks and Loudon robustly and was direct in his own answers about the mistakes of Liz Truss, whom he backed for leader, while re-stating his support for contentious welfare policies like the two-child cap. Kerr belongs to a species formerly thought extinct, the working-class Glasgow Tory, and while he’s on a hiding to nothing in this contest he has ‘future MSP’ written all over him.
Voters in Rutherglen go to the polls on 5 October and it’s a straight fight between Labour and the SNP, with both parties having a good deal at stake. If Shanks clinches it, his victory will be seen as a verdict on the SNP government in Edinburgh and Humza Yousaf’s troubled first six months as Nicola Sturgeon’s successor. If Loudon manages to retain the seat for the Nationalists, it will raise questions about Labour’s ability to take back former heartland seats in the next general election. Should the polls tighten between now and next year, picking up gains from the SNP in Scotland might prove vital to Sir Keir Starmer securing a stable majority.
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