The Snippet: June 6th 2025 🗞️
Hamilton by-election results, Nigel Farage's chaotic visit to Scotland, and Douglas Ross gets told off (again)...
Happy Friday folks! It’s been a couple of weeks off but The Snippet is back, and what a time it’s been…
The big news of the week is the result of the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election. I’ll focus on this first, but it’s helpful to give a bit of background to the run-up to the by-election first.
Let’s get to it!
👀 Keir Starmer visits Scotland
Monday feels like a long time ago now, but this week started with a visit from both Prime Minister Keir Starmer and Reform UK leader Nigel Farage (we’ll get onto the latter in a second, don’t worry).
Starmer was in Govan on Monday to announce plans to boost the UK’s military spending, where he partially unveiled the UK Government’s Strategic Defence Review (which was then published fully later in the day). He said that the Government would invest £15 billion in nuclear warheads and open six new munitions factories, as well as building up to 12 new nuclear-powered submarines. You can read a handy breakdown of that review via The Guardian.
While in Govan, the PM said that the UK will move to “war fighting readiness” and that the plans in the review would create a “battle-ready, armour clad” nation. Here’s a bit of his speech 👇
Commons speaker Lindsay Hoyle then accused the Government of committing a “blatant breach” of the ministerial code because details of the review were released to the media before MPs were briefed.
A fun fact: Alexander from The Traitors (yes, you read that right) was at Monday’s announcement on some sort of side-quest. The former diplomat shared a couple of videos of him interviewing Starmer. It appears he got more time with the PM than anyone in the Scottish media.
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Starmer also did an interview with the BBC while he was in Scotland, which was broadcast on Tuesday. He said that he couldn’t imagine another independence referendum taking place during his time as PM, and that "nobody's raising that with me as their first priority".
The Prime Minister didn’t campaign for the Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election while he was in Scotland - despite the constituency being just 13 miles from where he was. But as I’ll get onto, it seems like that didn’t matter in the end…
🤔 Nigel Farage also visits Scotland
The Reform UK leader also decided to visit Scotland on Monday - first in Aberdeen, then to Hamilton (or so we thought) to campaign in the by-election.
In Aberdeen, Farage announced that Aberdeenshire councillor Duncan Massey had defected from the Tories to Reform UK. He was also met by protesters, including anti-racism campaigners Stand Up To Racism, who had slogans such as “Farage not welcome in Scotland” and “Farage, Farage we know you, you’re a racist through and through”.
Farage then went on to accuse The Herald of leaking the location of the press conference to the protesters, something which has been flatly denied by the paper.
In a bizarre rant, Farage was about to take a question from The Herald’s political editor Andrew Learmonth when he said: “It’s funny isn’t it? That you come, and your newspaper also manages to have another one of your correspondents as a protest correspondent. So you knew more about this than we did.”
Farage then went on to tell journalists that “this location was only sent to you guys, it wasn’t put out on the public wires, we didn’t put it out to our membership, and yet they knew. So it came from one of you.”
Here’s Andrew Learmonth giving his reaction to the false accusations.
After a quick private jet down to Glasgow Airport, Farage was then meant to meet journalists in Hamilton for a press call at 2.15pm. But he never showed.
Journalists waited in a Premier Inn car park for around an hour before heading to Reform’s campaign HQ in Hamilton after hearing that he wasn’t going to be showing there. Protesters had already gathered outside the HQ, but there was no sign of Farage. It turns out he had decided to campaign in Larkhall instead, without telling any of the media, before taking a picture with campaigners in Hamilton round the back of the HQ building and swiftly leaving.
Here’s some handy behind the scenes reports from The Herald, The National and The Scotsman.
While Farage was meant to be speaking to journalists, Reform announced that Scottish Labour councillor Jamie McGuire had defected to the party. Here’s a useful look at McGuire’s previous political views via the Daily Record.
The following day, Farage then repeated claims to LBC that The Herald had informed “protest groups like Antifa”, going on to say that that was why he gave journalists “the slip” in Hamilton.
When asked by George Icke whether he was hiding, Farage said: “I had 18 journalists in a room yesterday in Aberdeen and took questions from every single one of them. Keir Starmer would have taken three. Kemi would have taken two. No, absolute nonsense.
“What we did have yesterday, though, was a newspaper called The Herald in Scotland informing protest groups like Antifa where I was going to be with a deliberate intention of trying to provoke violence and discomfort.
“And so, yeah, did we give the Herald and others the slip and go and do campaigning in the streets, meeting normal people without a bunch of thugs with masks on? Yes.”
Well, then.
🗳️ It’s by-election time!
And now on to the main event! The Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election took place on Thursday, with the result coming in shortly after 1.30am on Friday morning.
Scottish Labour’s Davy Russell won the seat - with the SNP and Reform coming in narrowly behind.
Here’s a breakdown of the results:
Davy Russell, Labour Party: 8559 votes
Katy Loudon, SNP: 7957 votes
Ross Lambie, Reform UK: 7088 votes
Richard Nelson, Conservative and Unionist Party: 1621 votes
Ann McGuinness, Scottish Greens: 695 votes
Aisha Mir, Liberal Democrats: 533 votes
Collette Bradley, Scottish Socialist Party: 278 votes
Andy Brady, Scottish Family Party: 219 votes
Marc Wilkinson, Independent: 109 votes
Janice MacKay, Ukip: 50 votes
Turnout at the by-election was 44.2%. Of the total electorate (61,485), 27,155 ballot papers were verified.
In his acceptance speech, Russell said: “I’m so proud to be elected MSP for my home and my community. Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse voted tonight to take a new direction with Scottish Labour.
“Like the people of Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse – and right across Scotland – we all feel we’ve been let down by the SNP. After nearly two decades [in power], they don’t deserve another chance.”
He also said his election also sent a message to “Nigel Farage and his mob” (Richard Tice was in the room), adding: “The poison of Reform isn’t us, it isn’t Scotland, and we don’t want your division here.”
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar said: “It’s an incredible night and it’s a tribute to a fantastic local candidate and a fantastic local candidate by the way that has had to put up with pretty elitist and classist comments about him.”
First Minister John Swinney also congratulated Russell, saying: “Congratulations to Davy Russell on his election as MSP for Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse. [Katy Loudon] fought a superb [SNP] campaign.
“We have made progress since the election last year but not enough. We still have work to do and we will do it.”
If you’re interested in some polling analysis, expert Professor Sir John Curtice has given his verdict on the result, which you can read in The Times here.
I’m sure there’ll be a lot more to come from this (certainly a lot of conversations within the SNP), but that’s the overview of the night!
📰 In other news…
Here’s a quick rundown of some other things that went on this week, outside of the by-election.
After Douglas Ross was kicked out of First Minister’s Questions last week, he tried to bring up the issue during a point of order - and was quickly shut down (STV News)
Speaking of FMQ’s, here’s what happened this week:
Scottish Tory leader Russell Findlay said the Scottish Government had failed to tackle organised crime (via Holyrood Magazine)
Scottish Labour leader Anas Sarwar focused on plans to downgrade a neonatal unit at Wishaw general hospital (via The Herald)
Scottish LibDem leader Alex Cole-Hamilton brought up the state of Scotland's beaches and dumping being carried out by Scottish Water
Other questions focused on ScotRail’s new AI announcer (which, fun fact, was first reported by yours truly) and ferry services (via The National)
We also heard from Edinburgh University chancellor Peter Mathieson in Holyrood’s education committee, who was unable to say how much he was paid (via STV News)
And, separately, trade union UCU announced staff at Edinburgh University are going on strike over the university’s refusal to rule out compulsory redundancies as part of plans to save £140m (PA, via Edinburgh Live)
John Swinney and his wife Elizabeth Quigley also did an interview with The Times on Quigley’s experience with MS and whether it influenced his decision to run for first minister
Scottish Government ministers refused planning permission for a development on the historic Bannockburn battlefield site (via The Scotsman)
That’s about it from me this week! Thanks very much for reading, and I hope you have a lovely weekend.
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