Hostility from some Edinburgh councillors goes too far – John McLellan

There are councillors in Edinburgh’s ruling coalition who behave like activists on the fringes of politics, writes John McLellan.

Alex Cole-Hamilton says most politicians can leave their rivalries at the door (Picture: PA)

Lib Dem MSP Alex Cole-Hamilton this week wrote about his friendship with SNP Justice Minister Humza Yousaf, who has received dreadful death threats, and of how political rivalries can be set aside behind closed doors. “When the cameras are off, most of us tend to leave our animosity at the door,” he said.

From my limited experience of working in the Scottish Parliament that’s largely true, but as with all walks of life there will be people you like and those you don’t.

On Edinburgh Council, there are plenty administration members I get along with but being an opposition councillor writing columns to balance the propaganda from the administration’s publicity machine, I won’t be on several Christmas card lists.

Even so, the level of general hostility from some administration councillors towards the opposition can’t just be dismissed as “theatre”. “For those political activists on the fringes however, there is no such bonhomie,” wrote Mr Cole-Hamilton. It’s not just the fringes, Alex.

Marketing Edinburgh’s accounts finally published

At long last, Edinburgh Council has published Marketing Edinburgh’s accounts for the year up to March 2019, with the eight-month delay incurring a fine.

The delay has been explained away by changes to the way payments linked to future events were recorded and following the SNP-Labour decision to fold the company its net assets have gone from £229,000 to £33,000. Why it took so long to sort this out has not been explained.

The company generated record revenues of £2.3m and was key to advancing council policies like the chief executive’s 2050 Vision pet project, but as Edinburgh faces an enormous battle to rebuild its vital visitor economy, it is possibly the only major city without a destination marketing agency.

That might suit the administration’s ill-disguised hostility towards private enterprise, but hindsight is not needed to see this was one of its most myopic decisions.

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