Why go on TV if you are going to be a grump, Kezia?
Comment Natalie Walker
Kezia Dugdale has come across as patronising and bossy. And sadly that is how many voters, especially younger people, regard politicians.
She justified defying her Labour bosses and leaving behind her constituents to use her stint as “an amazing opportunity to talk to young people about politics and Labour values”. Yet to date we have heard her talk politics just once – when she joked with Stanley Johnson that he could spend time explaining Brexit to her.
Dugdale may well be chatting about social justice and the need for higher public sector pay to her camp mates off screen, but what good is that? If you are getting paid a reported six-figure sum for three weeks’ work – less if you are among the early ones evicted, which at this rate Kez will be – would you not have a game plan to ensure maximum coverage? Like thinking about what to say and when to say it?
What screams loud and clear from our screens is that even the most able and caring politician is left lacklustre without their array of special advisers and spin doctors.
What is the point of going on one of the country’s biggest TV shows if you are going to be a grump?
Not just that, but one that rubs all the other contestants up the wrong way.
You would have expected a good few ding-dongs with Boris Johnson’s ex-politician father. Surely he is there for the taking. He is 77, ruled out of most of the trials on health grounds and his controversial son is Foreign Minister.
But Kez has merely implied she is not impressed with the “Stanley Cult” in camp and said he “irritates” her.
Well, at this rate he will have the last laugh when she is booted off first. At least he is having fun and is making an effort to get on with his temporary family. By contrast, Kezia looks ill at ease, out of place and just plain miserable. Which she might well be, but come on – this is TV!
If you can make it as leader of a major political party surely you have backbone, bite and backers? So come on Kez, it might not be too late to turn this PR disaster around.