Davy Russell: 'I knew I was going to win', says Scotland's newest MSP

The Scottish Labour MSP had been largely written-off by pundits who presented the by-election as a two-horse race between the SNP and Reform UK.

However, in a surprise turn of events Mr Russell saw off the competition from the nationalists to become Holyrood’s newest MSP back in June.

However he has now told Holyrood Magazine he was sure of his victory from the beginning.

He said: “I knew I was going to win anyway, right back at the start.

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“The door chappers were coming back and saying ‘do you know everybody in Hamilton?’

“It didn’t happen so much in Larkhall and Stonehouse, but 70 per cent of the vote is here.

“They would tell me who they’d been talking to, and did I know them, and I’d do ‘aye, aye, aye’.

“They didn’t all vote for me, right enough - some of them took cold feet because the bookmakers were putting me in third place, and they switched to Reform.

“They wouldn’t be natural Reform voters, they just wanted the nats out, and they've said to me since they’re going to vote for me the next time.

“I’m a confirmed candidate for next year.”

He also challenged the “invisible man” claims that were made about him during the election campaign after he turned down several media appearances.

Mr Russell said: “The ‘invisible man’ stuff people say about me is a million miles from the truth.

“It was made up because STV wanted me to go and do a head-to-head debate with the SNP candidate, but that’s not democracy - there were 10 candidates, all 10 should’ve been there.

“I didn’t think it would be right to do just a head-to-head, and after the Reform caught onto it.

“It was quite funny but it was totally untrue.

“I was the one people were seeing chapping doors.”

Mr Russell said Labour’s extensive doorstep campaign during the by-election, which was called following the death of the late SNP MSP Christina McKelvie, “proved the pundits and the bookmakers wrong”.

He said: “It was a hard shift.

“The door-knocking started at 10am every morning. That was seven days a week.

“I always say I used to be six foot four and now I’m five foot four with all the walking.

“There was one night I’d come in and I’d done 24,000 steps, and I said I’ll take my shoes off and have a cup of tea. I put the kettle on and sat down and fell asleep before it boiled.”

The two most recent polls suggest Scottish Labour may remain as the third largest party in Scotland as Reform UK looks set to beat them to second place.

Polls suggest the party could win 18 seats, one behind Reform UK. If this plays out at the ballot box, it would be three seats less than the party won at the 2021 Scottish Parliament election.