Adam McVey should have a lie down - John McLellan

In the 2017, council elections, 27.7 per cent of voters backed the Conservative Party but Labour and the SNP shut the group out of the administration. This year, with 25.9 per cent, the same thing has happened to the SNP.

We just got on with it, but not so for SNP leader Adam ‘Angry’ McVey, for whom this represents a “democratic deficit” and whose hissy-fit was so intense he had to be prised out of his big City Chambers office.

His furious article in the Evening News once again exposed the extraordinary arrogance which was the mark of his administration, in which due consideration for community concerns was described as “middle of the road, baby-step pace of change”.

But even more bizarre is his claim that an “overwhelming majority of residents” had voted for “strong action”, whatever that means, but if it’s the SNP manifesto then that’s demonstrably untrue, even including the Greens vote.

Just as unhinged from reality is the assertion that the delivery of “bold plans” in housing and transport is now under threat, when the reality is the biggest threat to the unrealistic plans was from their own impracticality and undeliverability, even before they hit the rocks of slashed Scottish Government capital spending combined with the 11 per cent inflation in the house building industry.

“The SNP’s commitment to our residents is steadfast,” he wrote, with the emphasis on the “our”, which in May didn’t include around 88 per cent of Edinburgh citizens. Go and lie down, Adam.