‘How useful are TV debates anyway?’ a Labour figure scoffed when I asked why their candidate in the Hamilton by-election wasn’t taking part in any debate this week. After the STV by-election debate special on Monday night, you might think they had a point. Only two of the six candidates approached by the broadcaster agreed to come into the studio – and the absence of Labour’s man made the whole thing very much a two-horse race between the SNP and Reform.
The absence of Labour’s man made the whole thing very much a two-horse race between the SNP and Reform
In his brief introductory statement, Reform’s Ross Lambie – a Tory councillor until March – talked about the general feeling of disillusionment voters had for establishment parties. ‘They feel that there’s been a lost generation,’ he told STV’s Colin Mackay. He then made a point that his opponents have been acknowledging in private: that Reform UK is picking up support from across the political spectrum. ‘They’re getting to breaking point,’ Lambie said about the voters of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. ‘One thing I’m getting on the doors is a sense of urgency… that’s why people are excited about the news guys on the block – which is Reform.’
The SNP’s Katy Loudon – who has twice (unsuccessfully) contested the Rutherglen and Hamilton West Westminster seat – pointed to the widespread fury sparked by Labour’s winter fuel payment cuts. Loudon said of her constituents: ‘They’re feeling let down by Labour. They might have voted for change last summer, and the performance of the UK Labour government over the past few months has not been particularly impressive… It’s fair to say that many people are scunnered in this by-election.’ What Loudon failed to note is that this is a Holyrood by-election, not a Westminster poll, in an SNP held seat. Her own party has been in power in Scotland for almost two decades, and the constituents heading to the polls on Thursday have had a nationalist MSP for 14 years.
Loudon attempted to pin Lambie down on policy detail – a weak point for the party, which is something Reform’s own Thomas Kerr admitted to The Spectator last week. Using her ‘cross-examination’ time to grill her opponent on his party’s plans for the NHS, Loudon morphed into a convincing reporter for two minutes. Tapping into concerns that Nigel Farage’s party has plans to privatise the health service, Loudon paraphrased the Reform leader’s comments on the health service, while Lambie managed to keep his cool. ‘You’re taking it out of context,’ he shot back at Loudon. ‘We’re saying we need investment in the healthcare industry as a whole.’
In his allotted interrogation of Loudon, he asked about the issue of healthcare in the constituency – ‘Why do you want to take [Wishaw General’s neonatal unit] away from this constituency and move it to Glasgow?’ – before slamming the SNP’s record. ‘How come you’re so snobby against football fans?’ he demanded, over the Scottish government’s reluctance to allow alcohol in stands. A visibly rattled Loudon told Lambie crisply: ‘Ross, this is about listening to expert opinion.’
The rest of the interview was brief. Their stance on assisted dying? Lambie is opposed; Loudon would have voted in favour of it at stage one. Was Lambie embarrassed about his party’s attack ad on Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar, which has been branded ‘racist’? No, absolutely not, Lambie replied. But he admitted that framing Sarwar’s speech as him calling to ‘prioritise’ Pakistani communities across Scotland was not the Labour leader’s words but Reform’s opinion.
What about Farage’s own admission, in Aberdeen on Monday morning, that Reform’s chances of winning the by-election were ‘improbable’? ‘We started off thinking, yeah, maybe we’ll knock the Tories down a peg. That will be a big story,’ Lambie replied, ‘and then now we’re thinking we’re going to knock Labour down. And now, you know, we’re closing in on the SNP.’ A Labour politician recently confessed to feeling increasingly ‘chastened’ as they made their way around the constituency. ‘I’ve been picking up a defiant Reform vote on the door.’
As for Labour’s candidate, Russell didn’t appear in the studio but did agree to be interviewed separately by STV’s Colin Mackay. As I wrote on Saturday, the party has been keeping the Hamilton candidate away from broadcast media due to concerns about his performance. Their worries made sense when Russell’s interview aired, with the candidate hesitantly repeating party lines. He wasn’t convincing when quizzed about why he wasn’t doing the full TV debate. He stumbled over the winter fuel payment cuts. He was similarly clumsy on the issue of the two-child benefit cap.
In many ways, it felt as though Russell had been over-prepped by the party – he seemed too busy trying to remember what pre-scripted lines would work best rather than answering from the heart. On child poverty, he said unemotionally: ‘Child poverty is a scourge of this modern society’. Despite Labour figures talking up his strength as a well-known local candidate, Russell failed to draw attention to that during his interview. In fact, his best moment came when Mackay continued to press him about the UK government’s decisions. ‘Well, I wasn’t involved in the decision. And this is a Scottish parliament election, right? If I was a member of parliament, then I would have based it on the facts I had in front of me at the time. Right now, I’m not standing for Westminster. I’m standing for the Scottish parliament,’ he hit back. Unfortunately that was the point at which STV wrapped up.
In an age of social media and soundbites, it helps to be good on camera; whether that makes you a better local politician is a different matter. But it is crucial to be compelling – and unless Russell is a different person on the doorstep, he will struggle to win round voters who aren’t already personally acquainted with him. Not that there was any clear winner of Monday’s debate from the studio: Lambie was relaxed and held his own but spent much of the evening defending comments made by his party and its leader. For her part, Loudon insisted that voters want ‘change’ while not managing to address why the SNP and party of government is so keen to talk about future delivery, despite being in power for 18 years already. But thanks to Scottish Labour’s reluctance to showcase Russell, more than ever the race looks to be between the SNP and Reform.
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