Happy Christmas!

I am in Edinburgh for most of the festive period, but blogging may be fairly light from today!

If any constituents, colleagues or other contacts really do need to speak to me - then the mobile would be the surest way to track me down.

... or chap the flat door if you're local and I may even offer you a drink :-)

Very best wishes for Christmas.

Teacher numbers down (again)

Just a few weeks ago, the GTC had a pretty damning News Release which showed very real problems with the number of employed teachers in Scotland ...

... and today, the EIS has an equally damning Release about the core number of employed teachers in the country. Scotsman has run with the story this morning.

Frankly, all the main school-based, education commitments of the SNP at Holyrood have been a busted-flush for quite some time - this is just yet more proof-positive of that fact.

Birthday Boy :-)

Birthday today - 45 ... seems like a slightly significant age; although when I consider my Dad is 81 next month puts it all into perspective ;-)

... no particular celebrations today - the weekend visit to Glasgow was my early birthday present!

Glasgow-day

Spent the day over in a not-so-sunny Glasgow last night and this morning ...

... bit of a treat for the big day tomorrow!

Batteries definitely re-charged and now ready for a few more days at work before the madness of the Christmas holiday really begins.

Xmas Party

Labour Group Xmas party in the City Chambers last night - very good atmosphere and a healthy crowd of attendees ...

... I left about 11pm and it still seemed to be in full swing ;-)

Many thanks due to all the Group Staff who put in a huge amount of work to make sure the evening went smoothly.


P.S. no doubt the real Party started as soon as I left :-(

Council responsibility

Yesterday's meeting was mercifully, slightly shorter than last month ...

... and it has to be said, that there was a little more 'give-and-take', by the Administration, as regards 'compositing/accepting' quite a few of the amendments/addendums etc. from the various Political Groups. Definitely saved at least 2-hours of insightful debate ;-)

It can be done!

Anyhow, one of the significant moments - for me - of the day was an acceptance that traffic management arrangements are the responsibility of THE COUNCIL and not of any arms-length body or external entity ... pleased to see that the local paper reported this almost verbatim today - see the third-last paragraph.

And, I'll quote it here, for ease of reference:

"Councillor Dawe also told the full council meeting that she, transport leader Phil Wheeler, the council's chief executive Tom Aitchison and the city development director Dave Anderson would all take collective responsibility if there was a repeat of the chaos experienced during The Mound closure when work gets under way on Princes Street next year."

We'll find out in February ...

Full Council meeting today

Full Council meeting today ... lots of deputations; probably quite a few political divisions; it is not going to be a short day :-(

... mind you, hopefully it won't be as long a meeting as last month?

Full agenda can be found here.

Tram communications

As regular blog readers will know, I'm pretty supportive of the tram project - a view that's not held by every political party in the City Chambers ...

... imagine then our collective disbelief when we carefully read the second bullet point of paragraph 4.1 of this overview report at our Group Meeting last night. I'll quote it:

"delegates authority to me, in consultation with the Council Leader and Depute Leader, to put in place revised arrangements for communications activity"

... yes, you've got it - that is asking for the Council Chief Executive to have delegated authority to finalise communications activity for the tram project in consultation with the Council Leader (fair enough - she wants the trams) along with the Council Deputy Leader; who last time I checked wanted to cancel the whole tram project!

Following that overview report, there are a whole suite of further reports on the tram project (see 8.1 on the the main agenda here), all of which we are broadly supportive of ...

... but allowing oversight of tram communications to an opponent of the tram project - errr, one has to wonder why this has even made it into any set of proposed recommendations?

I wonder if the Council Leader has even really thought this one through properly?

If this is approved, does she think the Council Deputy Leader will play a constructive role in this communications activity??

I don't need to answer that because its so bloody obvious what will happen :-(

Too much to ask

One or two colleagues have asked why-on-earth yesterday's Scotsman was making such ridiculous claims regarding my likely impact on the Scottish economy next year ;-)

... very droll.

Warning: slow-moving policy development

Noticed yet more depressing news on road safety being reported via the Scottish Government website today ...

I blogged about all of this nearly a year-and-a-half ago ... see here ... if you follow the link within that post, you'll see that the Transport Minister said back then that a new "10-year road safety strategy" would be developed? I was willing to give him the benefit of the doubt at the time.

But he's now saying it will be launched in the New Year ... really, 2-years to develop a 10-year road safety strategy??

Pretty obvious the priority being given to this one :-((

Elections change nothing?

As the eternal-optimist, I don't really subscribe to the view that 'its a bad time to be a politician' ... political scepticism may be rampant, but I for one reckon its been just so for generation upon generation.

And, personally, I reckon such scepticism is no bad thing. If you believe that politics does changes lives, then you surely have to believe that its right and proper for those very changes to be rigorously questioned, challenged and debated?

And for the doubters out there about the ability of democracy to facilitate change - just cast your eye over this quote:

"All of us know the problems that are rooted in our addiction to foreign oil. It constrains our economy, shifts wealth to hostile regimes and leaves us dependent on unstable regions."

That's the next democratically elected President of the United States speaking earlier today.

Certainly strikes me as a bit of a change from that countries' previous position on oil dependency?

I know that words are easy, and actions are what matter, but as I've mentioned before I do think that the world is in for a bit of a shock following that inauguration on the 20th January 2009.

School meals back on the menu

Remember the outcry (earlier this summer) over the SNP/Lib-Dem Administration's removal of a whole range of hot school meals from the city's educational establishments?

Guess what ... at this Thursday's Council meeting they are reversing the vast bulk of the decisions. Have a quick look at this report.

6-months late ... should never have happened in the first place ... but well done them.

Unfair funding

Fairer Scotland Fund again I'm afraid ...

... the Policy and Strategy report (which I mentioned earlier) is now coming up to the Full Council meeting this Thursday. The relevant documentation can be found here.

There are a lot of deputations on this issue, and I believe there may well be a considerable public presence at the City Chambers given the strength of feeling about all of this in North Edinburgh.

I still cannot understand why the current Administration just won't back the adjusted motion/amendment - have a look here again?

... if they did so on Thursday, I'd applaud them.

Wallander

Congestion charging, electoral reform ... no-one will be reading this blog shortly the way things are going ;-)

... so, on a much more serious note - regular readers will know I'm no huge fan of TV but do have a bit of a weakness when it comes to ER and Spooks. Sadly, neither is currently on terrestrial television - which is all the Burns household has access to!

But, for the last three weeks I reckon the dramas (commissioned via BBC Scotland I believe?), based on the Swedish author Henning Mankell's 'Kurt Wallander Mysteries', have just about outclassed the operations at 'Chicago County General', not to mention those at the MI5 HQ on the North Bank of the Thames :-)

... tragically, it was the last episode tonight.

I hope someone at BBC Scotland has already had the good sense to commission more episodes?

ERS Chair

Mentioned a couple of days ago that I was down in London for the weekend - and an ERS Council Meeting ... what I haven't bored you all to death with (but may be about to?) are some of the details of said-Council Meeting ;-(

... well, there's been a bit of external consultancy work finished recently for the ERS, which had recommended quite a significant change to the organisations' Council 'officer posts'. New structure, in effect, to tackle new challenges. The principles of all of this were accepted by the current officer-bearers, and wider-Council body, back in late August.

Thus, this latest quarterly Council meeting has duly seen the election of a new set of such officer-bearers, with the current Chair standing down after some 5-years in post.

... and yes, yours truly has been elected as Chair!

I therefore sense a bit more time being spent in London over the coming months - my no-flying regime could be about to be severely tested?

London alone :-(

I am in London, but not lonely ... referring to the news from Manchester today :-(

I well remember the endless arguments, in Edinburgh, back in 2003-2005 about how all the city needed was 'trams first' and then congestion charging would make perfect sense and would have received widespread public support ... I know its hard to believe now, but THAT IS exactly what was being said at the time.

... well, the news from Greater Manchester today seems to disprove that theory unfortunately: 78.8% No to 21.2% Yes ... and the region has had a tram system for years.

... even more resounding than that 22nd February 2005 result in Edinburgh: 74.4% No to 25.6% Yes.

Very difficult to see any other UK-city taking forward such proposals now?

London alone, indeed.

ERS Council meeting

Electoral Reform Society (ERS) Council meeting in London this Saturday ... off down to the metropolis later today, and not back up until early Sunday evening.

Blogging may thus be a bit light over the next couple of days ... but do look out for those December Council papers (actual meeting is on Thursday 18th), which should be up on "Committee Papers On-Line" (CPOL) around 10am this Friday.

... more to follow early next week, for sure, on many of those reports!

Tollcross Community Council

Attended Tollcross Community Council this evening ... was the only elected-Member present, which is an extremely rare occurrence in these multi-member Ward days!

... and, it has to be said, after 18-months of sharing public meetings with other Councillors it didn't feel quite right being there on my tod :-(

Apart from anything else, I wasn't able to cadge a lift home from my local Conservative counter-part ;-)