Edinburgh council elections: We need to vote on local issues, not national ones – Susan Dalgety

While the rest of us enjoyed our Easter weekend, or as much as we could, given the cost-of-living crisis, our politicians have been out and about in real life and on social media, scrambling for our votes.

The elections for Edinburgh Council are about the city, not Boris Johnson or Nicola Sturgeon (Picture: Oli Scarff/AFP via Getty Images)

The council elections are little more than two weeks away and politicians have been promising us the earth if only we will vote for them. The city’s SNP group are particularly generous.

Its leader, Adam McVey, has promised more trams for Edinburgh, adding two new spurs: one to Granton, the other connecting the city centre with the Royal Infirmary at Little France and beyond.

McVey has made his bold promise despite the fact that the city council is facing a huge deficit in its finances. And he has blithely ignored the embarrassing fact that the report into the budget over-run for the first leg of the tram scheme has still not been published, eight years after it was announced.

A confident McVey seems to think another few years of disruption on the streets of Edinburgh will win him another spell in power. But not if the Liberal Democrats have any say in the matter. Their leader, Edinburgh West MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton, has said his party will not back the SNP in any future coalition to run the city.

But, in a move that raised several eyebrows, he said he was open to a deal with the Tories. This is what can only be described as a courageous offer, given that the city’s Conservatives must surely be tainted by the lockdown antics of their boss, Boris Johnson.

Enter stage left Scottish Labour’s Anas Sarwar, who has very firmly rejected deals with either the SNP or the Tories after 5 May, which must leave his Edinburgh lieutenant Cammy Day feeling a mite foolish.

He brokered the deal with the SNP after the last council elections which put McVey in power, but has now been told, publicly, no more pacts with the nationalists.

So we know what the politicians want for our city, sort of, but what do we want? This year’s council elections take place during one of the most unsettling times in our recent history.

The Prime Minister is a law-breaker, there is a bloody war on mainland Europe, and inflation is at its highest for decades. Not to mention a global pandemic.

But when we go to the polls, we will not be passing judgement on Johnson, or Nicola Sturgeon for that matter. We will be choosing the people who we think will best run our city for the next five years.

We need people who will make sure our pavements are kept clean and the potholes on our roads are filled in. We need councillors who will run our schools properly and care for the city’s most vulnerable children as if they were their own.

Our city’s businesses – whether in hospitality, construction or tech – need champions who will argue Edinburgh’s case in Holyrood and Westminster, and further afield when required.

Above all, we need civic leaders who will always put our city first, before their own political ambitions and their party’s national objectives.

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