Yesterday certain parties got very excited here and started claiming that the Edinburgh tram project was about to be scrapped. Journalists here naturally thought this would be a huge story, and ran around frantically trying to find out the truth. The spin then softened to "Line 1B is under threat". This then became one piece in the Evening News with a headline which wasn't substantiated in the copy.
Shirley-Anne Somerville makes a big play to be the Nats' environmentalist representative in the capital, but like most of the rest of her party she's clearly closer to the motoring lobby. Line 1b would be "sheer lunacy", she says. Yup, imagine an urban public transport system that covers more of the city. Madness, I tells ya. Oh, except her researcher's had to come clean to the BBC: her press release was entirely unsubstantiated.
The bottom line is that an SNP/Liberal local authority is failing to deliver the trams properly. One half of the adminstration never wanted them, and sabotage is suspected. The other half wanted them, but in a half-hearted manner. It's like hitching a lame donkey to either end of a wagon and hoping they'll take you somewhere.
Imagine trying to deliver a massive public project with Councillors overseeing your work who want you to fail, who call for your resignation over their decisions, and who leak anything, however feeble, that goes against the project? No wonder the staff are leaving. The mystery is why the Nats in particular aren't worried about taking the blame should something actually go wrong with the project.
Also, what is specifically wrong with SNP/Liberal coalitions? Edinburgh: incompetent, arrogant, vainglorious. Fife: service-cutting, bridge-lobbying. Aberdeen: so massively incompetent that they risk being nationalised.
It strikes me that SNP and Liberal councillors are like Baileys and Guinness. Pretty unpleasant apart, but truly revolting when mixed. (if you like either drink, please imagine some alternative combination that curdles)
