David Bol, The Scotsman's Deputy Political Editor in Hamilton

The Scotsman

Transcript

00:00Hi, I'm David Boll, the Scotsman's Deputy Political Editor.

00:02I'm here in Hamilton for the last full day of campaigning for the big crunch by-election

00:07that was held tomorrow.

00:08Labour giving their last message to voters, Anasawa's here to launch the kind of final

00:13push before voters go to the polls, and very much Labour under pressure to get the vote

00:19out now.

00:20There's a lot of speculation that they're in a battle with reform to come second.

00:24Anasawa insists his party can still come first, but it's going to be a lot of work still

00:30to be done to get voters to come out and vote for them.

00:34On the back of this, the UK government, some of their unpopular policies have been quite

00:37a problem for Labour on the doorsteps.

00:40They insist this is a Hollywood election, it's about the SNP's record in government, and this

00:44is the first step, if they can win this, to kind of forming that Labour government next

00:49year.

00:50They're very much on the back foot, and they'll just have to wait and see when voters come

00:53out tomorrow and whether they'll support Labour or they'll stick with the SNP.

00:56In about 30 minutes, I'll be going down the road to the SNP's HQ where they'll be launching

01:01their final push of campaign with John Swinney giving his last message to his activists before

01:07polling day.

01:08We'll have the chance to choose a local champion of Davey Russell or more failure with the SNP,

01:13and they're going to go out there and they're going to back Davey Russell.

01:16Thank you for doing it.

01:17Our opponents have tried a dirty campaign and they've tried a misinformation campaign,

01:23and we've instead focused on the issues that matter to people here in Hamilton, Larkhall

01:27and Stonehouse.

01:28And just think for a moment, after 18 years of SNP government, all that John Swinney has

01:35to offer in this campaign is vote SNP to stop Farage.

01:40That's all he's got.

01:41The surge in reform support that you've seen personally, is this a wake-up call to the SNP?

01:46Obviously you say it's in reaction to a lot of unpopular Labour policies, but you must

01:49take a bit of responsibility for some of that angst from people.

01:53I think I've said throughout this campaign that I understand why people are feeling frustrated

02:00and anguished.

02:01A lot of it is about standard of living, because standard of living has not improved in recent

02:07years.

02:08And a large proportion of that is because Brexit made us all poorer, and Nigel Farage is the

02:12author of Brexit.

02:13So, what I've got to do, so I accept your challenge David, I've got to make sure that

02:20people see an alternative way forward, and that's what the SNP offers, and I've got to

02:25make sure that's what prevails in this by-election and in May 2026.

02:28Well, what we're doing is we're applying the principal position which we have always applied

02:35that Scottish public expenditure is not used for the manufacture of munitions, and we use

02:41our public expenditure to work appropriately with the defence sector in Scotland, but it's

02:47not used to manufacture munitions.

02:49Anasawa says a lot of the criticism his candidate has had in this has been a bit elitist and

02:53classist.

02:54Has he been a bit of an asset for your campaign?

02:56I think, yeah, I'm not going to talk about other parties' candidates.

03:02I just simply think that, well I'll talk about my candidate.

03:06My candidate, I'm confident, could go into Parliament, hold our own, speak up on behalf

03:12of the constituencies, square up to the First Minister and challenge them on behalf of the

03:18people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse, and I'm confident my candidate would be able

03:23to do that.

03:24I'm here outside the SNP's HQ in the middle of Hamilton town centre, where John Swinney's

03:28been rallying the troops ahead of tomorrow's election.

03:31The job now for the SNP activists is to get the vote out tomorrow and make sure they get

03:34this thing over the line.

03:36John Swinney completely ruling out the chances of labour tomorrow, saying it is a straight

03:39fight between the SNP and Nigel Farage's reform party.

03:44Obviously there's a lot of pressure on the SNP to win here.

03:47Given what they did in the general election last year, they kind of went backwards.

03:51Winning tomorrow would send a huge statement ahead of next year's Hollywood election that

03:55the SNP is essentially back in business and can win elections again, but they still need

03:59to get people to come out and vote for them and they will just have to wait for tomorrow

04:02to see whether that happens.

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