IT’S like the world's worst ever game of Where's Wally? Just where are Reform UK's mysteriously shy candidates?

Most parties put up so-called paper candidates in General Elections, candidates who have no realistic chance of winning. Major parties will normally make an effort to ensure they have their name on the ballot paper in as many constituencies as possible. They do this to boost their national vote tally or to ensure that there is no chance of a candidate from another party being elected unopposed.

Very often a party will put up a young activist as a paper candidate as a way of allowing them to cut their teeth and gain experience in an election campaign. A famous, or infamous, example of this was when a young Jacob Rees Mogg – who was 27 but dressed like he was a city banker in his late 60s – campaigned for the Conservatives in the Central Fife Constituency in the 1997 General Election with his nanny in tow.

Jacob Rees-Mogg has made a personality trait of being old-fashioned

The young Tory failed to impress the voters of Fife, and managed to cut the Conservative vote in half compared to the previous election of 1992. According to local legend, Rees-Mogg and his nanny toured the constituency in a Bentley, a story he dismissed as “scurrilous”, claiming that it had in fact been a Mercedes.

Nevertheless, after a couple of failed attempts to get into Parliament, he was eventually allowed to stand for the Tories in the safe Tory seat of North East Somerset, entering the Commons in 2010. This was the seat he lost in last week's General Election. But not to worry, Jacob will be just fine. He's already got a gig lined up haunting a Victorian orphanage.

However, if the suspicions of many are correct, although Reform UK strenuously denies it, Reform UK has taken the term “paper candidate” rather too literally. The party has allegedly put up a series of candidates who seemingly only exist on paper. Deputy party leader (and Nigel Farage warm up act) Richard Tice has taken to threatening legal action against anyone who accuses his party of standing candidates who do not actually exist – just as he threatened legal action against anyone who described Reform UK as a far-right party.

Tice appears to have some difficulty grasping this whole concept of freedom of speech in a democracy. It's only the “woke” who need to be held to account.

READ MORE: I tried to find Reform UK 'ghost candidates' in Glasgow – here's what happened

Three Reform candidates that stood in Glasgow amassed thousands of votes between them in the election. Yet all three failed to show up at any hustings event in their constituency during the campaign and none showed up for the count. None of the three have any social media presence and all have registered addresses in England.

Reform UK has admitted that it stood paper candidates in many constituencies but insists that they are all real people who support the party. David Stark, listed as the election agent for the three Glasgow candidates, admitted to The National that he has never met any of them and added: "We had two weeks to organise 57 candidates in Scotland. Inevitably, some of them were paper candidates.

“Various people who were chosen were away on holiday or business and we had to substitute with other people. That's just what happens.”

Is this what Labour voters wanted?

Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting has already shown his right-wing credentials

The new Labour Health Secretary Wes Streeting, who has links with private healthcare companies, has insisted that the NHS must end its "begging bowl culture" and instead focus on economic growth.

He said it out loud so his pals in the private health industry know he's serious. It raises worrying concerns that under Labour the NHS is for sale. Is this the “change” that Labour voters wanted?

Don't say, “it's only been a week, give Labour a chance”. In that week, Streeting has found time to give a speech to Tony Blair's think tank saying a lot of very thinly veiled stuff about privatisation.

Call me naive but I always assumed that the primary purpose of the Department of Health and Social Care should be on improving the NHS and social care and health outcomes – not on making money.

READ MORE: NHS must 'end begging bowl culture and focus on economic growth', Wes Streeting says

There is something deeply flawed in any notion that public health can be in any way profitable. By the very definition, healthcare is about humanity, equity, and dignity. To tip it into a profiteering mindset will not end well.

Streeting, in his first major policy announcement since taking office, has also said that billions of pounds would be taken from NHS hospital budgets in order to fund GP services.

Already the true face of a Starmer government is starting to show, and it's not pretty. I have argued for months that once in office Labour would become very unpopular very quickly.

At this rate, it seems that Labour unpopularity will arrive before Christmas – never mind before the next Holyrood elections in May 2026.

This piece is an extract from today’s REAL Scottish Politics newsletter, which is emailed out at 7pm every weekday with a round-up of the day's top stories and exclusive analysis from the Wee Ginger Dug.

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