Friday was truly awful. In the local elections the Lib Dems suffered serious reverses across the UK. This was played out most spectacularly here in Edinburgh where we narrowly avoided wipe out losing all but three of our seats.
I was one of the three and live to fight another day. I am joined by old stager Robert (Dobbie) Aldridge and new face Alistair Sheils, all West Edinburgh Councillors.
A lot of good councillors fell on Friday among them Jim Lowrie, Marjorie Thomas, Gary Peacock, Tim McKay, Gordon MacKenzie and our leader Jenny Dawe.
It was a bitter blown losing all of these capable individuals. Much as we can blame disenchantment about the Westminster Coalition I think trams hurt us even more so.
When you have Princes St and Shandwick Place dug up for months on end, when you have to take a detour of 200 yards just to cross a 20 yard road, when you have to do that four times to get to the end of Princes St and when your home backs on to never ending tram works then people are going to punish you. Much of this may not be our fault and to lay the blame at our door may be unfair when you look at all of the facts but the perception was that it was and in elections perception is everything.
Our administration achieved many great things; crime and homelessness slashed, new librarys opened when Labour run councils were shutting them, school attainment at record levels, the list goes on and on.
But the big issue hanging over us was the trams and we were punished for that. An inquiry may be kinder to us than the electorate have been but that will be years off and by then the aggro of the building works will have ceased and the line will be working. Perceptions will be different.
The council has no overall control. There are 20 Labour councillors 18 SNP, 11 Tories, 6 Greens and 3 of us.
We are in negotioations with an all party administration being touted. We need to know more about this and how it would work but if in Ulster the Democratic Unionists can manage to make a power sharing executive work with Sinn Fein then we might just be able to so the same. It will mean people putting tribalism aside, a move that I would welcome as an eternal advocate of a less tribal style of politics.
I will do my best to keep my readers posted.
Paul I am with you on less tribal style of politics. Out here in Midlothian we are seeing some signs of that but there's a long way to go. Why do people waste so much energy in point scoring when there's real positive work to be done?
ReplyDeleteI expect you are right about the trams and that's a no win situation for your party. Edinburgh has suffered terribly and I really hope Midlothian doesn't suffer the same outcome with the Borders rail line.
In the end of the day its just another day in politics and I hope your good people come out the other side OK. Sometimes it just takes time to be prove a point and I should know. My planning debacle ended some time ago but the repurcussions from the political arena are still not over. I live for the day when the bullys are exposed and defeated and less tribal politics are the order of the day.
Susan
Paul,
ReplyDeleteI accept your viewpoint but do consider that your election communication strategy to distribute leaflets which read as if the Trams never existed hardened opinion, no one doubts that the trams presented a huge challenge but upon reflection I do feel that Lib Dem leadership of this issue was not presented well, thus people made their own mind up. You and colleagues did not offer a case at all in my ward Meadows/Morningside.
Paul,
ReplyDeleteIt is probably tempting to blame everything on Nick Clegg (as suggested by Jenny Dawe) and the trams, but I suggest that you need to look more widely at the performance of your adminstration across all departments. I actually have no criticism for yourself, but some of your colleagues: Marilyn MacLaren at Education, for example, were truly lamentable. Did your group not realise this? Did you not think of replacing them? And as a constituent of one of the 'good' councillors you mention, I have to say that his performance as a local councillor was dire. Invisible at the local level, and not even willing to reply to emails....
Paul,
ReplyDeleteFurther to the last comment: I should, however, have congratulated you on being returned as one of the three survivors. You were definitely one of the successful and effective members of the last administration, and I'm glad to see that you were returned.