Video: Falkirk area MSP pays personal tribute to a Labour Party legend

Filmed at Hardie’s former home, Lochnorris, and around Cumnock, the five-minute film is a tribute to the Scot's trade unionist and socialist who paved the way for the formation of the Scottish and UK Labour parties.

The video was published on Mr Leonard’s social media channels today to coincide with the opening of the Scottish Labour Party conference.

Entitled A Leader Called Keir, the video explains that through Hardie’s experiences working in the coalfields of Lanarkshire and Ayrshire, and the shipyards of the Clyde, he “learned the need to unite the industrial and the political”.

Mr Leonard said: “He understood why the working class, through their trade unions, needed a political party. We defend that link today, not to look wistfully backwards, but because it endures as an essential, a practical way to represent our class in the same way the Tories represent theirs.”