IT’S an unfortunate fact of life that most people in the West of Scotland know what is implied by the question: “What school did you go to?”
Strip away the pretence and it is more accurately phrased: “Are you a Catholic or a Protestant?”
While great strides have been made in leaving the old sectarian divides in the past, it would be naive to believe they were ever entirely consigned to history, especially in Glasgow and the satellite towns of Lanarkshire.
It is here we set our scene for the upcoming Hamilton, Larkhall and Stonehouse by-election, triggered by the sad passing of Christina McKelvie (below).
Sectarianism, never quite vanquished as the idealistic politicians of yesterday would have liked to believe, lingers in Scottish politics.
Evidence of this as campaigning began for this crucial by-election has not exactly been glaring; but look closer and you will find it.
The SNP have been briefing stories about Labour candidate Davy Russell’s ties with the old boys’ club of Glasgow, when the city was still red.
One of the few photographs of him on record was from an outing he took with former council leader Frank McAveety and other council high heid yins to watch Rangers play at Ibrox.
That this picture was briefed out to the press alongside details of his links with the Glasgow Labour mob, as well as his business links with Gers supremo Barry Ferguson, was not coincidental.
Some in the SNP believe that Russell has been put forward in the race to galvanise the Unionist – and likely Rangers-supporting – vote in this part of South Lanarkshire.
Here's Labour's candidate for the Hamilton by-election, David Russell, watching Rangers play at Ibrox alongside Frank McAveety and George Redmond pic.twitter.com/Fx1uuFfQDo
— Hamish Morrison (@HMorrison97) April 16, 2025
Elsewhere, the SNP made a point this week of announcing they had suspended campaigning as a mark of respect after the death of Pope Francis. Scottish Labour made no such announcement and did not respond to an inquiry from The National as to whether campaigning continued.
It is hard to see this as anything other than the logical continuation of a deliberate strategy carried out more than 20 years ago to win over Scottish Catholics, who were historically repelled by the “Protestant party”, as historian Tom Devine once called the SNP.
If this seems like an outrageously outdated way of looking at the world, consider the political calculations one must make in a town like Larkhall, where the council spent £17,000 on replacing vandalised green traffic lights and the Subway sandwich shop’s sign is black instead of emerald.
