Scottish Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn problem

At one of Lord Ashcroft’s focus groups recently, participants were asked what jobs they thought might suit politicians if they were not, well, politicians. In Edinburgh, one respondent unkindly suggested Nicola Sturgeon would make an excellent traffic warden. For her part poor Kezia Dugdale – I’m afraid ‘Poor Kezia Dugdale’ has become the accepted form of labelling the Scottish Labour leader – was reckoned to be just the sort of person who would thrive working in a pet rescue centre.

There are many times that must seem preferable to leading the Labour party in Scotland. For the whole of this campaign Ms Dugdale has suggested that the very last thing Scotland, and indeed the United Kingdom, needs is a second referendum on independence. No, no, no, she says. It is time to focus on other matters, putting the divisions of the past behind us.

This recognises that the Labour party of 2017 is not the Labour party that existed in 2014.