LOSING 40 seats in last month's general election may not have been Scottish Labour's worst moment, Kezia Dugdale said yesterday, as she warned the party had yet to hit rock bottom.
Launching her bid for the party leadership in Edinburgh, the 33-year-old Lothians MSP predicted another drubbing at next year's Holyrood election.
Labour has 38 MSPs, but recent polls suggest it could be reduced to around 25 next May, all of them elected via the list system after the loss of every constituency.
Dugdale said she had been "shocked" at a recent TNS poll which said just five per cent of people aged 25 to 34 intend to vote Labour, while 80 per cent will vote SNP.
She told her supporters: "We may not be at the bottom of where the Labour party could get to in Scottish public life. There might be another storm coming.
"That's part of the reason why I'm stepping up, because I think I'm best placed to try and speak to that generation of people, and understand their hopes and aspirations."
Refusing to put a number on how many Labour MSPs she hoped would be elected, she said success would be getting "clapped off the pitch at the end of the season" for doing a decent job.
"It's going to be a difficult election, without doubt. But I'm up for it."
She said she was running for leader on the basis it was a "long term job", and had been assured by fellow MSPs that a bad result in 2016 would not mean her resignation.
"The problems didn't happen overnight and they won't be fixed overnight either.
"For me, this is a five year project, it's two elections," she said.
Dugdale indicated she would be more to the Left than the last leader, Jim Murphy.
She said she wanted to "redistribute wealth", using Holyrood's future powers to set a top rate of income tax of 50p for those earning over £150,000, with the revenue spent closing the educational attainment gap between rich and poor pupils.
She also repeated her plan to end the charitable status that gives tax breaks to private schools.
She denied she lacked the experience to be leader, saying she had been brought up to believe that "if you're good enough, you're old enough".
Several audience members asked whether Scottish Labour should become independent of the UK party, an idea ex-leader Johann Lamont said on Friday had a "very strong case".
But Dugdale rejected the idea, saying: "We won a referendum on the principle of pooling and sharing resources across the UK - the same argument should apply to our party.
"But that doesn't mean we can't be more autonomous or completely autonomous in the decisions that we make. I think all our policy positions should be set here in Scotland."
Asked if the UK party would let her do that, she replied: "I'm not going to ask permission."
Unlike Murphy, who gave vague or conflicting answers when asked how many members Scottish Labour had, Dugdale said it was 15,500, roughly a seventh of the SNP membership.
Dugdale's only rival for the top job, Eastwood MSP Ken Macintosh, last night urged the party not to be "ageist" when choosing its next leader.
Smarting at suggestions Labour should hand over to the "next generation", the 53-year-old denied he was too old to save the party.
"I am at precisely the right age to become party leader, old enough to have had experience of life, a career before I entered politics and a family. I know the challenges that are faced by working people because I've lived through them and that should be seen as an asset."
SNP business convener Derek Mackay said: "We take nothing for granted, but the fact Kezia Dugdale thinks worse could come for Labour - even beyond losing 40 of their 41 Westminster seats - will do nothing to inspire confidence in her efforts to become the next leader of the Labour Party in Scotland. She would do well to listen to Johann Lamont, who recognises the 'strong case' for an independent Labour Party in Scotland."
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