I understand that you are referring to a specific instance, while I was thinking more generally about this notion of working people's "colossal enthusiasm" for this.
But I was a low paid worker along with other low paid workers in the 80s when there were candidates advertising themselves as promising lto live "on a worker's wage", and I remember discussing this phenomenon at work at the time. We all thought it was daft and perverse for someone with a chance for a good income to deprive themselves of it to make such a point. Being daft in that way was not an attribute we sought or valued either in a Union FTO or an elected representative.
And as I said, those five MSPs who held to that position got voted out at the last election so voters all over Scotland showed what they thought too. Why would a teacher, like Rosemary Byrne, or a midwife, like Carolyn Leckie who had studied and worked to achieve above average pay, deprive themselves of that money to make a point? It showed disrespect for others who had achieved a better position through study. That is not a position that most ordinary people respect, and they demonstrated that at the ballot box.
