We hadn’t been intending to talk about this again today, but the John Beattie show on Radio Scotland just ran a segment that we really can’t let go unremarked.
Here’s the whole thing. Some of that’s going to need interpreting for the sane.
The quote everyone’s leapt on is this:
“The Labour Party made a promise and it’s not a good look for any political party to fail to keep its promise. And this is what it’s doing to one of its own, so how can people trust that party in any other aspect of life?”
And while we agree wholeheartedly with the wider sentiment with regard to trusting Labour, there’s no actual evidence that the party HAS broken any promise to Dugdale.
(We notice, incidentally, that Dugdale’s Twitter bio – pictured below in late 2017, last week and today – no longer contains any mention of Labour, but she apparently still wants them to fund her anyway.)
The line we found more interesting was this one:
“This is a party that is fundamentally about fairness, equality and justice, and they’ve put me in the most horrendous position.”
Let’s break those three qualities down, shall we?
FAIRNESS
Kezia Dugdale is subject to the laws of the land, the same as anyone else. But she’s already the beneficiary of rather MORE than fairness. She has rights – in the form of Parliamentary privilege – not available to ordinary members of society.
That means she was able to repeat her false and grossly offensive allegations for seven minutes unchallenged on national television, and there’s absolutely nothing anyone can do about it. (The current case only refers to her Daily Record column.) Is that fair?
EQUALITY
Kezia Dugdale is paid around £60,000 by the taxpayer, despite voters having resoundingly rejected her at the last election. That’s over twice the salary I take as editor of Wings. She also owns a house (I don’t), was recently paid £30,000 (after tax) to abandon her constituents for several weeks for a “celebrity” TV show, and has received £94,000 in support from the Labour Party up to now.
In contrast, we’ve gathered just £14,000 from a fundraiser.
That’s a financial advantage of at LEAST £140,000 so far, to which we must now add slightly woolly and unquantifiable “legal support” from the Daily Record. So it’s awfully difficult to see where any inequality against Kezia Dugdale could be said to have manifested itself there. The opposite seems plainly true.
JUSTICE
Dugdale’s focus so far in fighting the case has been to avoid it being heard at all. The vast sums of Labour’s money she’s spent have been on an unsuccessful (thus far) attempt to have it thrown out without any evidence being heard, for a constantly-shifting set of reasons. She’s currently engaged in what will be an expensive appeal process likely to prolong the case for several more months.
It would have been perfectly possible, had Dugdale been prepared to do so, to avoid those steps entirely and simply agree to seek a sheriff’s judgement over the contested claims. The entire matter could easily have been concluded in court, with highly-qualified advocates, a year ago for probably no more than £10,000 in costs on each side.
That it has instead taken so long and cost so much is solely Kezia Dugdale’s doing. Our side has offered several out-of-court settlements and we also offered the rapid, much cheaper route straight to a decision (in legal jargon, a “proof” rather than a “debate”). All were rejected.
So when Kezia Dugdale demands
“fairness, equality and justice”
…what she actually means is
“a vast financial advantage, preferential treatment in law, and the ability to smear anyone I want without any risk to me personally whatsoever even if I get sued and lose, because other people will pick up the tab, while the people I smeared would be financially crippled because I’ve made it so expensive.”
There’s no charge for this translation service, readers. All part of the job.
