Kezia Dugdale is right to challenge the SNP’s claim to be Scotland’s party of the left. But what’s trustworthy for politics may not turn out to be trustworthy for LabourRepeatedly wounded in recent elections,the Scottish Labour party is a shadow of its former self. Labour has a sole Scottish MP. It stands on 21% in the polls, 31 points behind the nationalists. Its leader Kezia Dugdale trails the SNP’s Nicola Sturgeon by 36. whether the polls are right, and Labour will beget only 26 out of 129 MSPs at Holyrood after May’s elections.
This is a familiar picture. It is a tribute to the success of Ms Sturgeon and the SNP in painting themselves as Scotland’s champions. The party claims to be uniquely able to defend Scots against austerity while simultaneously promising a new Scotland through independence. The combination has created an all-conquering electoral hegemony,in which the SNP is both the party of the left and the party of separation. Everything points to the voters choosing another helping of more of the same in May.
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Source: theguardian.com