be filled unopposed by the party holding the seat. The Unionists were reported to be closely observing the party truce and the Labour Party in Dundee also passed a resolution against the adoption of a Labour candidate. However Churchill was not to face an uncontested election. Candidates opposing Churchill On 24 July 1917, The Times reported that the Hon. Stuart Erskine, one of the sons of the 5th Baron Erskine had been planning a candidacy against Churchill but had decided to withdraw, although it is not clear upon what platform Erskine was proposing to contest the election. More importantly as it transpired, it was also reported that Churchill would face opposition from Edwin Scrymgeour as an advocate of alcohol prohibition and as representative of organised labour. Scrymgeour represented a serious challenge. He was a well-known local man from a prominent Dundee family and in total contrast to Churchill stood for fundamentalist religious views, extreme temperance and left-wing socialism. He was an elected member of the Burgh Council, having first been elected to the parish council, the body in charge of Dundee's poorhouses and poor relief as a representative of the Independent Labour Party as long before as 1895. He also had Parliamentary election experience having stood against Churchill on three previous occasions. Scrymgeour's candidature was not however endorsed by the Labour Party, as noted above, with Alexander Wilkie formally announcing there should be no contest and defending Churchill from Scrymgeour's criticisms. The campaign At an early stage Churchill set out his stall as the government candidate who was putting aside party political argument at a time of national emergency. At a meeting in Lochee on 27 July, Churchill said the sole issue the electors had to consider was “....the prosecution of a righteous war to an unmistakable victory". Despite saying that he refused to be drawn into any kind of electioneering or bickering, he straightway attacked Scrymgeour, who had been formally nominated as the candidate of the Scottish Prohibition Party, for seeking peace with Germany in order to suppress the Scottish liquor trade. Later in the campaign Churchill appealed to the voters not to defeat him as the government candidate as this would in effect send a message to Britain's enemies that the country was weakening in its desire to win the war. Scrymgeour was indeed opposed to the war and said so openly, in the same way that he