Despite "fresh start", Kezia Dugdale still faces uphill struggle

Kezia Dugdale offered a fresh start'' for Scottish Labour when she was elected as leader 10 months ago with the overwhelming support of party members following its rout in the general election.

She freshened up a party that was in bad shape following years of attrition from the SNP at Holyrood and a mixture of dismissal and occasional interference from Labour's dinosaurs'' in Westminster that treated it likea branch office'', in the words of one former leader.

Her biggest stamp on the party was the wave of new faces that replaced sitting MSPs atop regional lists that were seen as the party's best hope for seats in 2016.

But she was the first to acknowledge she had yet to shape the party into a coherent fighting force, and now faces the task of rebuilding the party once again in the face of another disappointing night.

She has been wrong-footed on a number of policies, briefly suggesting she may vote for independence in the event of Brexit before backtracking; permitting the party to campaign against nuclear weapons despite her own personal support for Trident; and calling for the SNP's named person'' policy to be shelved despite

her own personal support.

Ms Dugdale, 34, was elected as an MSP for the Lothian region in 2011 and rapidly marked herself out as one of the rising stars within her party.

In 2013, she won the one to watch'' category at the annual Scottish Politician of the Year awards, partly as a result of her work with the Debtbusters campaign to crack down on payday lending.

Ms Dugdale is the daughter of two teachers, although she has revealed her father Jeff is a paid-up member of the SNP.

She once applied for work experience to the SNP as a young graduate, an application that came back to haunt her in the 2016 campaign and prompted allegations that the SNP had breached her data protection.

Ms Dugdale was born in Aberdeen in August 1981 and studied law at the city's university before going on to complete a masters in policy studies at Edinburgh University.

While studying in the Scottish capital, she worked as a welfare adviser for the university students' association and in the public affairs office at the National Union of Students in Scotland.

Before her election to Holyrood, she spent four years working at the Parliament, serving as office manager and political adviser to Lord Foulkes between 2007 and 2011 when he was an MSP for the Lothian region.

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