Kendall: We took voters for granted in Scotland

Liz Kendall has said that Labour performed so badly in Scotland at the election because the party “lost touch” and “took voters for granted”. In an interview with the Sunday Herald, Kendall appeared to echo the remarks made by new Scottish Labour leader Kezia Dugdale last week, who said that the defeat had been a “long time coming”.

Asked about Labour’s performance in Scotland this May, Kendall said:

“Honestly, I think that what’s happened to Labour in Scotland has happened over a long period of time. We lost touch with people, we took voters for granted. Parties always win when they set out a positive and optimistic and confident vision for the future, when they have a broad appeal. That for me is important in working in Scotland. We’ve got show how we are a credible alternative to what the Tories do and have got a strong leadership.”

Kendall would not lay blame with ‘weak leadership’, and instead criticised those who have simplistic analyses of the problems the party faces. She said that “anybody who gives you a kind of simple, glib answer to what’s happened here would be wrong”.

The leadership hopeful refused to say what extra powers should be granted to Holyrood, saying she was more interested in devolving away from big institutions and to communities instead:

“What I’m most interested in is how you devolve powers out of the Scottish Parliament down to local communities. I’ve always believed that decisions, whether about schools, local services, or skills and employment and the workplace, decisions are better taken with and by the people that they affect. My vision is not just of a country where power is devolved from Westminster to Holyrood and the Welsh Assembly, but down to local councils and communities. I don’t want to win power for myself. I want to win it to give it away.”