Labour prospects of 10th councillor at by-election look slim

However, Labour’s prospects of filling the vacant position are in some doubt to say the least.

At the moment Labour heads a coalition administration in the City Chambers despite only having nine councillors in its group

Last time around in May 2022, the Conservative candidate Christopher Cowdy came first in the Single Transferable Vote election and the Tories are confident that their candidate in the current contest will do likewise.

At the moment Labour forms the administration up in the High Street despite only having nine councillors in its group. Edinburgh City Council is comprised of 63 councillors and after tomorrow’s election that number will be restored, but Labour, unfortunately for them, are unlikely to increase their number to ten.

Of course, it is remarkable that they form the administration in the first place and only do so with the support of the Liberal Democrat and Conservative groups who banded together to thwart the aspirations of the SNP/Greens who had the combined total of 29 councillors, just three short of an outright majority.

The SNP and Greens assumed that they, and not Labour, would form the administration – with some justification I might add.

So why did the Liberal Democrats and the Tories decide to use their combined forces to catapult Labour into power and block the SNP’s bid for the spoils?

It has been said that both those parties are “Unionist” and so would naturally want to limit to the role of a party of “Independence” to that of a by-stander but there would seem to be more to it than that.

After all, when I was fortunate to lead the SNP group in the City Chambers, I successfully negotiated coalition deals with first the Liberal Democrats in 2007 and then Labour in 2012, with both coalitions lasting their full term of five years.

So it would appear that the reluctance to allow the SNP to run the council along with the Greens was borne out of resentment at the way they were treated by the SNP when it formed the previous administration with the Labour Group.

Accusations of arrogance and failure to consider proposals from others were cited as examples of how some SNP members in that particular administration dealt with members from other groups and the Liberal Democrats and Tories did not fancy more of the same, thank you very much.

So, the outcome of tomorrow’s by-election will have no bearing on who runs the council because that ship has already sailed and the only way that it can be sunk is if the Labour Group scuttle it by so incensing their two political allies, the Lib Dems and the Tories, to the extent that they jump ship.

Even the current Labour group, inexperienced as it is, surely cannot be so foolish as to jeopardise its position – after all the opportunity to run a council with nine members out of a total of 63 doesn’t land in your lap every day!