As scores of Labour activists queued up for Keir Starmer’s final rallying speech before next week’s Rutherglen and Hamilton West byelection, another queue was forming at the church next door. Inside the church hall in Burnbank, two volunteers, Alex Gilmour and Anne Paul, were preparing trays of cheese- and ham-filled rolls and cups of tea for about 80 local people who rely on its daily free breakfasts, its food bank and its council-funded money advice service.
This byelection, to replace the disgraced former Scottish National party MP Margaret Ferrier, has been a head-to-head contest between Labour and the SNP, with the cost of living crisis, in-work poverty and Scotland’s overstretched health service the key issues on the doorstep.
