Lally aims to sing his way to poll success

"We're on the road wi' Lally's army" may not propel the 79-year-old former lord provost to pop stardom, but it certainly had enough surprise value to make his opponents sit up and listen when it was unveiled at an Edinburgh press conference.

It didn't seem to bother Mr Lally that the original 1978 version, by Andy Cameron, marked Scotland's ignominious defeat under Ally McLeod at the World Cup in Argentina.

Indeed, Mr Lally, who is standing in the by-election as an independent, tore into his version - which was written for him by a friend - with gusto.

Mr Lally sang the song with his supporters, the independent MSPs Margo Macdonald, Jean Turner and John Swinburne, after explaining why he had decided to stand in the Cathcart contest, which has been caused by the disgrace and subsequent resignation of the Labour MSP Lord Watson.

Mr Lally also demonstrated that he intended to inject his own brand of political wit into the contest.

Asked what he thought of Jack McConnell, Mr Lally replied: "His name is vaguely familiar. Basically, I agree with everything the New Labour candidate said about the First Minister."

This was a sharp reference to the problems Labour had at its launch earlier this week when its candidate, Charlie Gordon, was forced to try to explain why he had been so damning about Mr McConnell in a newspaper interview 18 months ago.

Asked whether he was too old to stand for the Scottish Parliament, Mr Lally said he wanted to reassure voters that he would not "stand for any more than three or four parliaments".

He went on: "At some stage, I would like to spend more time with my family, but I would say that, if I became First Minister, I would hang on a little longer."

Mr Lally took 11 per cent of the vote when he stood in Cathcart in 2003 and can expect to make a similar impact this time.

The SNP appears to have most to lose from his decision to stand as he is likely to take a sizeable chunk of the anti-Labour vote, although he may damage Labour's chances as well.

Mr Lally is standing on a platform of speaking up for Cathcart and defending accident and emergency services at Glasgow's Victoria Infirmary.

The fate of the hospital has already become a main campaign issue. It is due to be replaced with a new, state-of-the-art clinical operations unit, but the plan is for it to lose its accident and emergency cover at the same time. This has angered many in the constituency, who fear that the extra time and trouble it will take to get all the way to the Southern General Hospital will cost lives.

Mr Lally said he was in favour of the new unit but wanted to see accident and emergency cover maintained at the Victoria.

Lally's army

We're on the road wi' Lally's army; we're going tae change the Scottish scene. Margo, Jean and John'll back us up when we lift the Cathcart cup, 'cos Lally's is the people's only team.

When we win the by-election, we're really gonna show the Scots a better class of politics than they have ever known.

We're representing Cathcart and we're gonna do or die. The others cannae dae it, they willnae even try!