KEZIA Dugdale’s leadership campaign was bankrolled by the same No supporter who funded Jim Murphy’s ill-fated rise to the top of Scottish Labour, the Sunday Herald can reveal.
Aberdeen businessman Alan Massie, who gave almost £33,000 to Murphy in the spring, also gave £15,000 to Dugdale’s recent leadership campaign, the party confirmed last night.
Massie’s donations of £10,000 and £5,000 accounted for almost all of Dugdale’s cash, with Unison supplying another £1,500. Further details are due to published by the Electoral Commission next month.
Dugdale’s rival, Ken Macintosh, has already declared £9,000 from individual supporters.
In recent years, Massie has emerged as one of Labour’s biggest Scottish donors, giving almost £300,000 since 2011, as well as £15,000 to Better Together during the referendum.
His £32,900 to Murphy's leadership campaign accounted for 56 per cent of its funding.
Meanwhile, Labour’s 'deadwood' list MSPs are facing deselection in January, after the party yesterday confirmed the timetable for picking new candidates for the 2016 election.
Meeting in Stirling, Labour’s Scottish Executive Committee agreed party members would rank candidates for the eight regional lists in the New Year, with results announced in February.
The Committee agreed in June to re-open the lists and remove the “protected status” which had previously shielded 'hopeless' list MSPs from challenges.
With the SNP expected to win almost all 73 constituency seats in May, Labour is focusing on the 56 list places, calculating it can return three MSPs per region with 20 per cent of the vote, and four with around 25 per cent.
In 2011, Labour won 22 list MSPs with 26.3 per cent, but because the party hadn’t expected to win many list MSPs, the quality of the candidates was often poor.
Dugdale yesterday urged people to join the party and “shake up Scottish politics”, adding: “I want people from business, lawyers and doctors, but we also need more office workers, cleaners and porters. Parliament needs to look more like the Scotland it represents.”
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