Anas Sarwar

But, you know...

My earliest political memory is when I was about 12 years old, leaving to go to school.

And there was a strange looking envelope on our doorstep.

And being a really curious young boy, picked up this envelope, made the mistake of opening it up.

And there was a mocked up picture of my mum tied to a chair.

with two guns pointed to her head, and in cut-out letters from the newspapers it said, bang, bang, that's all it takes.

And it was a message from Combat 18, a far-right organisation at the time, who were dead against the idea of electing Britain's first Muslim Member of Parliament.

And obviously it shook me and shook our family.

And the experience of coming home from school, having to go to the police station,

give my fingerprints because obviously I touched this letter and they had to exclude my fingerprints from it.

And that made me think this is not a normal situation I would want my kids to grow up in.

So the idea of being in politics really, really repulsed me.

And then when I started off as an NHS dentist in Paisley,

I saw firsthand the impact that not just your oral health impacts on someone's outcomes, but I lost count of the number of 17-year-olds, 18-year-olds, 19-year-olds that I was having to do full dental clearances.

So literally pulling out all their teeth and replacing it with full acrylic dentures.

and I got to see firsthand the direct impact of poverty of inequality of addiction of family background a lack of access to skills and good employment and the impact that then has on health and it gave me a hunger and a passion to want to do public service properly and then one of my best pals who was also a counsellor in Renfrewshire at the time came to see me and asked if I'd have dinner with him one night after I'd finished my clinic in Paisley I

we went to a local restaurant in paisley and he was like you know you'll know this from lots of labour party conversations alistair this was in the run-up to the 2007 scottish parliament election he said to me you know we don't really have a diverse group of candidates and so you'll be really doing us a favor if we can add your name to as a candidate as a paper candidate so we can talk about having diverse candidates and i was like okay where do you want me to stand and he goes uh

Will you be the candidate in Selkirk and Roxburgh?

And I had no idea where he was talking about.

And I was like, listen, I am not going to be the candidate in Selkirk and Roxburgh.