Melanie Ward: Hamilton by-election win shows people are desperate for change

This victory isn’t about a single place 60 miles from here. It matters because it proved what will be true in next year’s Scottish Parliament elections: only Scottish Labour can beat the SNP and deliver a new direction for Scotland.

The media, like the SNP, were stunned by the result because they were so out-of-touch with what people on the ground were saying. Instead, it was the voters who had their say; telling the SNP that their time is up and choosing a break from a failing status quo.

They made that clear in last year’s UK General Election when they removed the Tories, and now they are telling the SNP the same thing – we’re tired of our money being wasted, a broken NHS, a struggling education system and a Scottish Government that is out of steam and out of ideas. At the same time, voters rejected Reform UK and their brand of poison.

It’s clear in our own community how the SNP Scottish Government has let us down. From the long queues of ambulances outside the Victoria Hospital and recent figures showing around 43,000 Fifers stuck on an NHS waiting list, to the fact that there is a growing gap in educational achievement between our richest and poorest areas.

We have a mental health crisis in Fife but the Scottish Government won’t even consider the case for funding to tackle this and bring services up to modern standards. Funding for Fife College is being cut while other parts of Scotland are prioritised instead. Local people are rightly concerned about youth violence, anti-social behaviour and fire-raising.

Since becoming your MP, I hear from people every week who are desperate for change. The UK Labour Government is pushing to help deliver the change you voted for: that’s what this week’s Spending Review is about. I fight every day in Parliament for change that will make a real difference in our area.

Next year, everyone from Cowdenbeath to Kinghorn, Crossgates to Kirkcaldy – and right across Scotland - will have a stark choice to make at the ballot box: a third decade of the SNP or a new direction with a Scottish Labour Government that will focus on fixing our NHS, improving our schools, making sure people feel safe in our communities and ending the billions in wasted public money.