My apologies to you lovely readers for the lack of posts since last Wednesday but I have been laid low by a trapped nerve. Its still with me but not quite as painfully as it was on Thursday past when I had to leave the budget meeting. I had tried all that week to get it fixed but to no avail and so I missed the budget debate which I found extremely frustrating. Mind you so did my colleagues who were there so perhaps I didn’t miss much really,The administration, despite their warm words about consensus, listening and new politics refused to allow any debate other than about their own budget. We were allowed to present an alternative, which we did and you can see here
But as an alternative to the old ways we asked for the opportunity to have a debate about specific items which is allowed under the standing orders. We wanted to have a debate about ideas, not just the usual “we’ve got more than you” type discussion which gets us nowhere.
They refused. They claimed new politics but their words are empty
They claimed they would listen but they simply ignore anyone who disagrees with them
They claimed transparency bit we have been given no idea what deals were done behind the closed doors of their coalition discussions
In their defence I suppose they have been consistent in not practicing what they preached since the election but that is not a compliment.
I hesitate to cast an analogy between the trapped nerve in my neck and the administration but I am sure you get my meaning
Posts
2 comments:
In the interest of transparency and full disclosure would you care to publish the all material held by the Edinburgh Labour party reating to you attempts to forma coalition with both the Lib Dems and the SNP?
I am not sure what this means, but if you tell me what it means, I will publish what I can.
What I would say is that there are no documents relating to the forming of coalitions with the Libdems because the Libdems never offered us any as our talks never got down to the stage of policy discussions. (they were more interested in how the positions would be shared)
The SNP refused to to talk to us. (we had a meeting arranged but I was rung 15 minutes before the appointed time to be told that the Holyrood Party had instructed the SNP council group that they were not allowed to do any deals with Labour)
Ewan
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