Jeremy Corbyn really has made socialism trendy – at least in Scotland. We can take that from the speech that Kezia Dugdale, Labour’s Scottish leader, will make a today focusing on the ‘s’ word – something she is unlikely to have done had Mr Corbyn been languishing in the polls.
Indeed, it was only a few weeks ago that Dugdale warned that a Corbyn victory would leave Labour ‘carping on the sidelines’. Then, as he started to edge ahead in the race, she started to move, first insisting they shared some similar policies and then meeting him privately at a rally in Edinburgh.
Today she will edge even closer to his agenda by getting really passionate about inequality and poverty.
‘My socialism wasn’t learned from a book, it comes from lived experience. Who I am has shaped what I believe,’ she will tell an audience in Edinburgh.
Dugdale will cast her politics as a direct result of her upbringing, a childhood where she recognised inequality around her and then decided to do something about it.
She will say: ‘I first felt the unfairness of inequality when I moved from primary school in leafy Elgin to secondary school in urban Dundee. Expansive sports fields replaced by playground concrete. An average pupil in prosperous Elgin, I was suddenly near top of the class in my new secondary in Dundee.’
Her message is deliberately crafted to put her on the side of those who seek to balance up society, in any way they can.
It has clear echoes of Mr Corbyn’s tax-the-rich agenda and this speech will probably represent the most markedly socialist statement by a Scottish Labour leader for years.
For Dugdale, the inequalities were worse at university where she came into contact with privately-educated children for the first time.
She will say: ‘When I went to study law at Aberdeen University I found the wheel had turned again and I was surrounded by privately educated pupils whose backgrounds I couldn’t relate to and whose achievements I couldn’t compete with.
‘They would spend holidays at their parent’s law firms, I would work preparing food containers for oil rigs.’
But, despite the warm words about socialism, Dugdale showed yesterday that she is not above a little sharp politics too.
When she announced her shadow cabinet this morning, the name of Neil Findlay was not one of those she called in to her top team. Why is that important? Because Findlay, a left-wing Labour MSP, has been organising Corbyn’s campaign in Scotland.
Findlay stood against Jim Murphy for the leadership last year and was rewarded for his efforts with a place in Murphy’s frontbench team.
But Dugdale is obviously confident enough to have him outside the tent, whatever he may do there, than risk having him doing the same inside.
However, it is likely that Corbyn – should he be successful in his leadership bid – remembers Dugdale’s treatment of his close friend Findlay with a great deal more clarity than he remembers her speech about socialism and inequality.
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