KEZIA Dugdale’s speech to Labour’s conference yesterday was last night described as reflecting “a party out of ideas”.
The accusation was made by SNP MSP Linda Fabiani, who said the Scottish Labour leader repeated “more of the same tired old negative lines that Labour have been using for the last eight years in Scotland” and had failed to come up with any new thinking.
Fabiani also hit out at Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, who over the weekend pledged to support the Chancellor’s "budget responsibility" charter – which commits to wiping out the deficit by 2020 and is seen as a key factor behind the Tory’s austerity agenda.
“Today we heard more of the same recycled promises about how Labour would change – the problem for Ms Dugdale is that these are the same promises we’ve heard from Wendy Alexander, Iain Gray, Johann Lamont and Jim Murphy – and people in Scotland are simply fed up hearing it,” she said.
“The fact is that people in Scotland aren’t going to be quick to forgive or forget the way Labour stood shoulder-to-shoulder with the Tories during the referendum. And with John McDonnell pledged to back George Osborne’s fiscal plans, people across the country will be wondering whether Labour is capable of changing at all.”
During her speech to the conference in Brighton yesterday, Dugdale insisted Scottish Labour was reforming and was ready to take on the SNP government, which she argued was “more interested in a second referendum than governing in the interests” of the country.
She said that unlike her predecessors, she would not just listen but act to change Scottish Labour by offering new policies and rebuilding the frontbench team. She said Labour had to break its losing streak at May’s elections to the Scottish Parliament. “Scotland needs a strong Labour Party and a strong opposition to the Scottish Government,” she told delegates. “Because for eight years, the SNP Government have had the chance to change our schools, change our hospitals, change our country for the better. But the truth is they haven’t.
“In Scotland, we have a Government that is presiding over falling standards in our schools and hospitals,” she said. “A government who have governing as a second priority, opting instead to carry on an argument that the vast majority of Scots don’t want to have.
“And this has consequences. It means difficult decisions delayed, progressive choices dismissed and, tragically, a lack of political will to use the powers we have in the Scottish Parliament.”
Earlier, Shadow Scottish Secretary Ian Murray, who was the only Labour MP left in Scotland following the party’s disastrous General Election result when it lost 40 of its 41 seats, joked he was the “last man standing” as Labour’s sole Scottish MP remaining in Westminster.
“Conference, I should begin by saying that I’ve never spoken at national conference before so let me do this properly,” he said. “Ian Murray, first-time speaker, last man standing, Independent Socialist Republic of Edinburgh South CLP.”
During his speech he accused the SNP of claiming to “campaign like lions”, but of governing “like mice: sleekit, cowrin, tim’rous beasties!”
He added he would “fight for a Scotland Bill which would deliver a powerhouse parliament Scotland deserves” but would never allow a second independence referendum.
Pointing to a press release he said was issued by the SNP, outlining the shortcomings of the Scotland Bill, Murray said: “It says we might need to have another referendum. Conference, I won’t let that happen.”
The National View: Jeremy Corbyn disappoints with tired old lines about SNP
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