Scottish Labour has not put Holyrood at the centre, says Kezia Dugdale

The Scottish Labour party has not prioritised its work at the Scottish Parliament, according to the party’s deputy leader.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Kezia Dugdale said the party had not always put Holyrood “front and centre”.

“For the whole of my adult life the Scottish Parliament has been the centre of Scottish politics; that’s not necessarily been how the Scottish Labour party has viewed it,” she said.

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As the Scottish Parliament gets new powers and responsibilities, “the more primacy we have to give it”, she said.

Dugdale is standing for the leadership of the party in Scotland, replacing Jim Murphy who is standing down after an extremely poor result in the General Election last month. Labour lost all of its Scottish seats apart from Edinburgh South.

 “I could talk to you at great length about what happened in the General Election. I could explain it away; I could try to find excuses. I think that would be the wrong thing to do. My job as, hopefully, the next leader of the Scottish Labour party is to understand it. To make sure that in the future the Scottish Labour party meets the hopes and aspirations of the people of Scotland who have high expectations of us that we failed to meet last time around.”

She said the culture of the party had to change to address its downfall in Scotland.

“Well, first of all I would say to you that no one person, no one policy, no one new structure is going to do it. It’s about changing the culture of our party.”