00:00Yes, I'm our leader of the Scottish Labour Party and I'm here in Kirkintilloch to celebrate
00:03with our fantastic new local councillor, Aidan Marshall, who's just won the Kirkintilloch
00:08East and North and Twecker by-election where the SNP vote completely collapsed because
00:13people here are sending a clear message that they're sick of the SNP, that they've lost
00:17their way and they want a new direction for our country and that can only be delivered
00:21by Scottish Labour in May 2026.
00:23Look, of course we've got to have people from right across different demographics taking
00:27part in our politics and I'm really proud that we had a fantastic local young candidate,
00:31Aidan Marshall, who's obviously well known in his local community, really committed to
00:34his local community and will fight really hard for local people here every single day.
00:38What are your hopes for him?
00:40He's a young boy, he's got a bright future ahead of him, but right now he's going to
00:43get sworn into the council, get straight to work delivering for local people and using
00:48this as a platform for us to make sure we have success in the Scottish Parliament election
00:51next year.
00:52I'm Aidan Marshall, I'm the new Labour councillor here in Kirkintilloch North East and Twecker.
00:56I'm delighted, I'm delighted with the result, it's an honour and a privilege that the people
01:00of my community put their trust in me to work tirelessly for them for the next few years.
01:05So the by-election is here across Kirkintilloch and Twecker, great communities, Hillhead,
01:09Rosebank, Waterside, Westermains and I've got an of course in Twecker.
01:16It's an area where I've grew up, went to school, I've worked in for years, worked here on High
01:20Street for a good few years, so I know the local issues and I know the priorities of
01:25the people here and it's an honour to be given the opportunity to work hard for them.
01:30I hope to be accessible to the people here and as Labour councillors we always oppose
01:34cuts to local government from the SNP Scottish Government and hopefully we can invest our
01:41public services properly.
01:42Of course council by-elections turnout is always relatively low but we spoke to as many
01:46people as we could and I really, really enjoyed the campaign.
01:49We spoke to thousands of people and if you don't speak to people you don't know their
01:55so I'm glad we ran such a successful campaign.
01:57So people feel let down by years and years of local government cuts, public services
02:02aren't running as well as they should be, particularly here in terms of buses, our village
02:07communities have been let down with bus services and hopefully now that I've been placed here
02:13I can work constructively with colleagues from across the chamber and with our really
02:18great Labour team and our member of parliament now as well to try and secure the high quality
02:25public services that our communities deserve.
Comments