And The Trams Squeal On…

Yesterday, Edinburgh City Council was presented with the latest update report on the construction of the Edinburgh tramline. This came after several weeks of increasingly vocal opposition from both the Edinburgh Evening News and the SNP, including reports that Steve Cardownie, the SNP deputy council leader, would call for a referendum into scrapping the trams.

The report itself was delivered at the same time as inauspicious news for the tram-works. According to an Evening News poll, published on the same day, 63% of respondents said they were have opposed the trams if asked before construction began while 47% of respondents were in favour of ditching the project. The paper even secured comments from Malcolm Chrisholm, Labour MSP for Edinburgh North and Leith, who was a strong advocate for the tramline during the Labour administration, distancing himself from the project.

I attended the council meeting to see how the Labour opposition (who planned and began implementation of the tram project) and the Lib Dem portion of the coalition would deal with the public anger currently being generated by the project. The answer is not terribly well.

The debate on the trams opened with a submission from the Edinburgh Rail Action Group. This group has lobbied for the rebuilding of stations on the Edinburgh South-Sub Railway for a number of years, despite the idea being brushed off by both the Scottish Parliament and Network Rail. In the chambers however, their representative Harold Nicolson made a firm stand in favour of giving the people of Edinburgh choice on the future of the trams. He also called for greater accountability and transparency in the operation of Transport In Edinburgh (TIE), the organisation running the project.

This was followed (after submissions by UNISON and Holyrood Academy’s Parent Council on other matters), by the presentation of the report. Unhappy with the Lib Dem movement to accept the report, the Tories and Labour both tabled amendments to it which were duly accepted, following extended debate. The Tory amendment was of particular interest, requesting reports from TIE, to be delivered on fixed dates. These will outline the future costs of the tram project with a firm estimate of the final costs and the revenue of the tramway. This should be delivered on September 16th 2010.

The main event at the council meeting was the amendment which wasn’t accepted. This was a motion put forward by the SNP’s Steve Cardownie calling for those in charge of TIE to be brought before a special meeting of full council to answer questions on the project. It would likely have resulted in a congressional hearing style meeting in which the council would have been able to hold those running the project to direct account in a public forum. Alas, it was not to be with only the SNP voting in favour of the amendment.

Nonetheless, this amendment did serve the purpose of helping to highlight the various opinions in the council. The two common threads running through the debate were the mismanagement of the project and the blame for this should rest with. The answers, coming from various parts of the chamber and with varying levels of credibility, included TIE, Labour, the contractors, the Lib Dems, the SNP, the people of Edinburgh and the Greens.

There did seem to be some point of agreement however. Both the SNP and some of the Labour group suggested that a referendum should have been held before the project began, while the Lib Dems and Labour managed to agree on a number of points about why the SNP should be taking more responsibility for the tram works and not continuing to oppose the project while forming part of the council’s executive.

There were a number of samey arguments flung around in favour of the trams, including the suggestion that the trams would benefit Edinburgh in the same way they’d benefited many European and English cities and towns. Without the revenue estimates requested by the Tories, these lack credibility at the present time, not least given the economic changes which have been seen since the trams were approved. As was pointed out (I believe by Cllr Work), most of the cited cities don’t have an award winning and publicly acclaimed bus system.

Some interesting points about the works at present were made by Cllrs Beckett. Cllr Beckett gave details of information he’d received from a residents group, showing that air and noise pollution in their area had increase due to traffic reorganisation for the trams, also pointing out that while SNP does not have a representative on the TIE board, Labour does, giving the latter greater responsibility over the tram project then the former.

Closing remarks on the debate came from the Lib Dems, and were very apt. The councillor in question (who’s name I didn’t catch) talked about how all of the councillors had a responsibility to the city and people of Edinburgh. Wise words, not least because the council needs to have a long, hard think about how the city can best be served at a time when large cuts are going to have to be made.

The tram project squeals ever onwards, albeit with public disapproval. On one hand, it’s gone too far to simply stop, but on the other the full cost is as yet unknown. The bright side of the council meeting is that the Tory amendments will at least see greater transparency in the future. Hopefully, this will be enough transparency for Edinburgh to weather this wretched folly.

-

For purposes of clarity, my own personal perspective on the tram project as a whole can be found in this article on the Guardian Edinburgh blog. Thanks to Tom Allan of the Guardian, Al Innes and Fay Young for allowing me to gatecrash.

Is Edinburgh Going To Scrap The Trams Again?

On the 16th of November 1956, Edinburgh Corporation shut down it’s extensive tramway and began the long and not terribly easy process of ripping up the tram tracks and cutting down the overhead wiring. In parts of the city, the remains of this network can still be seen, with some buildings on Lothian Road, Princes Street and Leith Walk retaining brackets for holding overhead wiring. The last remains of the tramworks can also still be seen, to the rear of large patch of wasteland on Leith Walk.

On the 24th of June 2010, Edinburgh City Council may take the first step towards halting the creation of the new tram network. Unlike it’s predecessor, the new Edinburgh tram line has proven to be a white elephant for the city as costs spiral out of control, disputes with the contractors head towards the courts and delays mean that trams may not start running until 2012, beyond original projections for the project.

Opposition to the trams is now widespread. The SNP, both in Edinburgh City Council and Holyrood have long opposed the trams. Many Edinburgh residents also oppose the tramway on the basis that there is a perfectly good bus service in the city, so good in fact that Lothian Buses recently invested £3 Million in a new fleet of plush express buses to ferry visitors from the airport to the city centre, catering for a route which is expected to provide the trams with the majority of their traffic. Unsurprisingly, more then a few residents in the south of Edinburgh are irked that they have had to pay for a project which they personally will receive little benefit from.

The solution to this, as proposed by SNP council leader Steve Cardownie, is to hold a public referendum into the trams. This idea is due to be discussed by the council and seems likely to pass, if only because the city cannot afford to bankroll the trams indefinitely or indeed, at all. A bail out by the government is not an option – originally the SNP opposed continued tram funding on principle, now, as cuts begin to bite the money simply isn’t there.

Construction continues at the Haymarket Interchange

Giving the people of Edinburgh a say on the trams is possibly the most sensible thing that can be done now. For the Lib Dems, Labour and Tories, it avoids a climb down on an increasingly embarrassing flagship policy, while the SNP get to walk away with a political victory. Spending will not stop if the public say no however, as in order for the city to see any returns on the trams, the segment of the network from Edinburgh Airport to Haymarket has to be completed. This will not be cheap given that considerable work still needs to be done between Haymarket and Gogar and at Haymarket Station. Wiring also needs to be erected along much, if not all, of the route.

Whatever happens, the tram project represents a massive embarrassment to Edinburgh, with the tracks embedded in Scotland’s most famous street serving as a testament to folly and £600 Million down the drain.

The New Politics of Asylum

After the welcome announcement that the Lib-Con Coalition intended to end the detention of child asylum seekers in prison-like facilities such as Dungavel, (and the climb-down over time scales), we might be seeing a glimpse of how this issue is going to be dealt with. It could be rather bad news as regards the future of immigration policy in the UK and EU.

Last week, the EU agreed, in principle, to various member states setting up reintegration centres in Afghanistan. The centre planned by the UK Border Agency will be based in Kabul, with the facilities to handle 12 deported orphans per month and assistance for 120 deported adults per month. This would represent a massive step up in the numbers of asylum seekers being deported to Afghanistan.

It is worth remembering that Afghanistan is still an active warzone with a high degree of political instability and considerable problems with warlords, rape, murder and general human rights breaches. It is unlikely that British or NATO troops will exit Afghanistan in the near future without chronically destabilising the country. The idea that Afghanistan is safe to return asylum seekers to en mass is obscene and shows a lack of compassion or decency in the minds of our policy makers.

While initially, this is only going to apply to Afghanistan, I am concerned that it might open the doors to further similar projects in other countries. Many of the asylum seekers and immigrants from outside of Europe are here for genuine reasons and will face death or worse if they return to their original countries, something which this initial policy does not seem to take into account. Even with the recession, we should not be valuing the  wealth of state or the appeasement of the right above the value of a human life.

David Laws Falls On His Sword

Yesterday, prior to David Laws’ statement on his expenses, I predicted that he would be an early casualty in cabinet. I had no idea quite how prophetic my post would be, and I could never have foreseen that he would be brought down in such circumstances.

I suspect that Laws has taken the correct course of action.

Had he not chosen to stand down from his office, it would have called David Cameron’s rhetoric on new politics into question in the minds of the general public. With expenses widely forgotten in the wake of the election (as sleaze and cash for questions were in 1997), for the new government to be seen to contain any element of ‘old politics’ would be unacceptable, with the right-wing press struggling to defend it after months of rallying against expenses cheats. In that situation, action would have to have been taken to distance the new regime from the expenses scandals, which would likely involve Mr. Laws being ejected from Cabinet by the Prime Minister.

Some commentators have claimed that Laws is the victim of a witch-hunt. I don’t think this is the case. The Tories must protect the reputation of the cabinet and the idea of new politics for as long as possible in order to retain what credibility they have. Had Laws been a Tory rather then a Lib Dem, I suspect he would been presented with an unsigned resignation letter a lot earlier then he was.

-

I have already made my feelings regarding Danny Alexander, MP for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey, clear in a previous post. Annoyingly, that post is now due some reassessment, as Mr Alexander has been promoted into Mr Laws’ job. While Alexander has a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics, he has little experience in the field, having served in various press and communications jobs prior to being elected in 2005. It’s difficult to criticise him for this alone, however, since George Osbourne is a career politician with a modern history degree.

Time will tell how this partnership will shape up, but if the satirists were having fun with David Laws, they are going to have even more fun with the youthful, ginger Alexander.

Alexander has been replaced in the Scottish Office by Michael Moore, who interestingly holds a Tory target seat and a majority of just 5,000.

The Red Pill or The Blue Pill

The Liberal Democrats are in a historic position. The choices they make over the next few days will set the political agenda for years to come.

Should they go into coalition with Labour, Plaid, the SDLP, Alliance and the Greens, they will be lambasted by the right for propping up an unpopular government who helped to place the UK at the heart of the economic crisis. This rainbow coalition would be forced to make some of the most sweeping cuts in British history, tarring both Labour and the Lib Dems.

The idea that such a coalition would last four to five years is fantasy. Sooner of later, there would be a sufficiently large rebellion which would manage to either pass or nearly pass a vote of no confidence. If indications from John Reid, Tom Harris and David Cairns are anything to go by, the rebellion would likely be over a referendum on implementing a  single-member constituency single transferable vote election system. It is even possible that some of those who are more resolute in their opposition to coalition and on the right of the Labour party, such as Tom Harris, could defect.

Either way, I would suggest that the long-term outcome of such a parliament would be a Tory majority in the next election, a slashed Lib Dem vote share and Labour heading to the political wilderness.

The alternative is coalition with Tories. This has the potential for the creation of a stable government which would require the whole of the Lib Dem parliamentary party to cross the benches in order to pass a vote of no confidence. However, the Lib Dems face both a voter rebellion and a grassroots rebellion if they support the Tories. Over the past few days, I’ve seen Lib Dem voters, mainly young people, go through various stages of anger and disappointment at the positive progress made between the Tories and the Lib Dems in coalition talks. This is just a taste of what could happen.

The Tories would also face a backlash against the ‘age of austerity’ promised by David Cameron, as cuts begin to fall across all areas of government. That could usher in either another hung parliament in the future or a Labour government. They’d also face alienating the right of their party by making concessions to the Lib Dems. Lord Tebbit has already positioned himself as a cheerleader on that matter, and no doubt figures such as the US-style neo-con MEP Dan Hannan will be able to rally voters against coalition.

And which option is best for the United Kingdom?

Truthfully, neither of them. Like the Lib Dems, the UK is stuck either way. There isn’t a right answer, just two wrong ones.

And what of the the SNP and Scotland? Well, the party has made it clear that coalition with the Tories is not an option. Douglas Alexander, Tom Harris, Jim Murphy and others within Labour have rather foolishly made it clear that they are unwilling to work with the SNP at all. No doubt this will have repercussions, when, in just under a year, we elect a new Scottish Parliament.