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Would-be MSP slams Labour’s ‘deadwood’ at Scottish Parliament

Thomas Docherty.
Thomas Docherty.

Labour’s deputy leaders north and south of the border have cast serious doubt over its ability to pick up votes in May’s Scottish election.

It came as a former Fife MP branded parts of the Holyrood group he is bidding to join “deadwood”.

Tom Watson spent the tail end of last week in Scotland as the UK leadership team prepares to head north of the border more regularly in a bid to support Kezia Dugdale’s campaign.

Mr Watson, who visited Dundee on Friday night, refused to talk up the party’s chances of success at the ballot box when questioned by The Courier.

He said: “I don’t know what the outcome will be electorally in May. All I know is we’ve got a good team, led by Kez and Alex.

“I hope people give us a second look after we rebuild and after some pretty poor electoral defeats.”

He also attacked the SNP for its “centralising” local authority budget offer.

But that was undermined in a series of shock interviews on the BBC’s Sunday Politics Scotland.

First, ex-Dunfermline and West Fife MP Thomas Docherty hit out at the standard of politicians elected across all areas of the party.

Then the Scottish deputy leader, Cowdenbeath MSP Alex Rowley, told the programme the party was trying to recover from having “lost our sense of direction lost the sense of what Labour stands for”.

And he conceded, amid plummeting polling, Labour’s best hope of returning MSPs was on the regional list.

He said: “If the election was tomorrow, we know it would be difficult to hold only first past the post seats.”

Mr Docherty, who lost his seat at the last general election, is vying for a place high up the Mid Scotland and Fife regional list which Mr Rowley will top as deputy.

Mr Docherty said: “There is deadwood in the Labour group in the Scottish Parliament. There has been deadwood in Labour at all levels of representation, including councils and Westminster.

“The point of this (selection) process is to sort that out so the people elected at the top of the ballot are of the highest calibre.”

SNP MP Pete Wishart called Mr Rowley’s interview “a car-crash”.

He added: “To have the deputy leader admit the party has lost any sense of itself speaks volumes about the dire state Scottish Labour are really in.”