Greens can learn from Claudia about traitors - Kevin Lang

One week on, I need to hold my hands up and admit it - I’m still having Traitors withdrawal symptoms.

Cllr Kevin Lang (Lib Dem)

Yes, I was one of the many who were glued to their televisions throughout January as Claudia Winkleman hosted her BBC series of betrayal, lies, banishment, and double crossing.

It all climaxed when poor Mollie, trusting to the very end, found herself walking away from the show’s finale without a single penny of the prize money as her “friend” Harry emerged as the final deceptive traitor.

It meant Harry walked away with everything. Both my daughters were in tears.

As we approach this month’s crunch budget vote at Edinburgh Council, I’m left wondering if we’ll see our own equivalent of Mollie and Harry, of trust and betrayal, all played out in the city chambers.

Because over the last 12 months, we’ve seen two groups of councillors – the Greens, trusting and hopeful of their SNP friends, only to be let down – time after time.

Take last year when Green councillors worked hard to put together their own budget proposals, only to have their ideas pinched by the SNP who, at the last minute, presented the plans as their own because their original budget plan was deemed illegal.

Twelve months on and we have Green councillors, committed to progressive taxation but forced to swallow a council tax freeze from the SNP who didn’t even bother to ask before announcing it.

The Greens want to see massive investment to ensure our city reaches its net-zero targets, but they invariably link arms with the SNP, the very party which is cutting the funding needed to reduce carbon emissions.

I’m assured this month’s budget will be different – that the Greens will stay strong, stand their ground, and do their own thing. Yet you must wonder if, like poor Mollie in Traitors, they’ll cave in again when the time comes.

As Claudia Winkleman would advise at the round table; “it’s time to think carefully about who your real friends are”.Kevin Lang is the leader of the Liberal Democrats on Edinburgh Council