Kezia Dugdale made a spectacle of herself again at First Minister’s Questions earlier today. Using time intended for holding the Scottish Government to account over its devolved responsibilities, Dugdale once more decided instead to ignore her duty to the people of Scotland and attack the FM over a matter which is entirely outwith the Scottish Government’s control, namely the past actions of a Westminster MP.
Pausing only to demand that Holyrood interfere in the running of the independent Law Society, Dugdale then abandoned her casual endangerment of a live police inquiry by focusing instead on the morality of the aforementioned MP’s business practices:
But Ms Dugdale’s own ethics left a few things to be desired.
An extract from First Minister’s Questions earlier today:
That was Kezia Dugdale’s opening question. Despite the Presiding Officer making it absolutely clear that the question was improper and outwith Holyrood’s remit, the Scottish Labour leader went on to use her entire allotted time on the issue. She was then followed by Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson doing the same.
The people of Scotland are being done a grave disservice.
It appeared on any possible interpretation to be complete nonsense, but Ms Dugdale – who’s pledged to make education the issue at the heart of her leadership – has been somewhat reluctant to clarify the statement.
Several queries from her Lothian constituents have gone unanswered, but one Wings viewer did manage to get a single tweet of response.
We didn’t think that could be right, and dug up some figures suggesting that it was nonsense, but of course “the poorest kids” is a highly-flexible metric. Strictly speaking you could just mean the two poorest children in the country, and if one of those two can’t read there’s your 50%.
Luckily, we’ve now had some meat put on the bones of that claim.
Given that he’s the last Labour MP left in Scotland, it’s perhaps just as well that Ian Murray is a quite interesting figure, because there’s going to be a lot of attention on him in the next five years.
Unlike the over-promoted, under-skilled, Buggins’-turn knife-and-fork-operators who’ve disgraced what were previously weigh-the-vote Labour constituencies in Scotland for decades, the member for Edinburgh South has some genuinely admirable qualities. As we noted before the election, he’s earned a reputation as a hard-working local MP: holding surgeries, replying diligently to letters and speaking up in the Commons.
He’s got a sense of humour about his lonely role, he’s the only Unionist politician ever to talk to Wings on the record, and on account of running a large tent at the Bath Festival most years he’s well known to several of our good friends in the city, who all speak highly of his personal character and work ethic.
So in all seriousness, we’re not without respect for the man. Which makes it all the more painful every time he opens his mouth.
You’d put this down as a slip of the tongue, but when it came in the middle of an extended bout of bodyswerving John Mackay’s straightforward question about a referendum on Trident, maybe Kezia Dugdale really was just saying what she meant.
So there’s definitely going to be a second referendum, the No campaign is going to win it again and a shattered SNP will collapse as a result, sending Labour triumphantly back to Holyrood power. (Having now come out on top in not one but two internal elections, presumably Kezia Dugdale is now also a “proven winner”.)
It’s just that we feel like we’ve heard that before somewhere.
This spoon-faced howler was pointed out mirthfully by vile cybernats days ago, but we suspect that the person at Scottish Labour who knows how to work the internets only comes in on Tuesdays and Thursdays. It’s going to be a long road back.
