A voice and a vote

With what looks like four runners (at least), no-one will be able to say that Scottish Labour won't have a competition for leader this time which will be no bad thing.

I hope that there will be several hustings as its important that the election is seen as something that fire's up the Party. The lifeblood of every Party is its activists and they need to feel their contribution to the process is much more than simply an X on a ballot.

Decisions and their ramifications

I have spent most of today preparing for my new post as Secretary of the Church of Scotland's Church and Society Council.

Its going to be an adventure but the biggest challenge in the first few months with be the mental adjustment to not having the City Council as my main focus as it has been for the last 9 yeras. Although I remain a member of the City Council as Labour member of Craigentinny /Duddingston, it is now what I do as well as my main job, rather than it being my main job and that will be a big change for me.

Wendy Alexander faces a different but not unconnected adjustment. I didn't want her to resign but I think, given the highly politicised decision of the Parliamentary standards committee, (despite Salmonds denial), I do not think she was left with any choice. She needs now a quiet summer with her family and then I hope she will return to a role within the Labour Party that can make best use of her deep understanding of political life in Scotland and her ability to think about policy and political possibilities that few in any party can match

Despite some apparent similarities in our recent decisions, I have not been where she is but in some small way I think I have an understanding of what she has felt like in the last few days and she and her family are simply in my thoughts and prayers.

A run for life with a difference...

I was privileged yesterday morning to be invited to be at the start of a huge undertaking by two of my constituents, Robert (Rab) Henderson and Karen Young.

Rab is running and Karen is cycling to Stevenage to raise awareness about drink driving. Rab's brother who lived in Stevenage, was killed by a driver under the influence in January and this run is his way, along with Karen, or trying to say out loud: "No, this shouldn't happen and we need as a society to say that it is just unacceptable.

Personally, I would sign up to a "no drink at all if you are driving" law instead of the fudged issue we now have. Driving a car whilst drunk is to have a lethal weapon in your hands that you can't control and we as a society should be brave enough to say that's unacceptable.

Rab will be running the equivalent of around a marathon a day for 16 days. He's on the staff at at Castlebrae High and he's clearly got his message home there as a lively group of pupils turned up to support him. Lets hope many more listen as he and Karen wend their way across the country.

U-turns and conversions

During yesterdays meeting an SNP councillor who had assured people visiting his surgery that he was going to vote with a Labour motion, explained that his change of mind was the result of being spoken to by the SNP leader.

We have seen so many examples of these Damascus road like experiences by SNP councillors in the last 12 months that the Labour benches have begun to wonder if these days, at least in the SNP world, BC means "before Cardownie" and AD means "after dressingdown".

I think we should be told!

Edinburgh Libdems; SNP Lite...?

I have often said that its the SNP that run the coalition but yesterdays meeting showed just how true that it.

On 3 separate occasions the Libdem front bench "defended" their administrations failure with the , "its all because of the tight settlement from Westminster Line" so beloved of SNP Ministers to cover their inadequacies.

They said these things as they took a severe beating yesterday on the Single Outcome agreement, on Wave 3 schools, on school meals, on tendering for services for the vulnerable, on the tautology that is the fairer Scotland fund and much more. Yet, if truth be told, the heat was all on the Libdems whilst the SNP were sitting "pretty" and silent, (in 11 hours the 3 Greens spoke more often that the 12 SNP councillors).

The SNP have made the libdems adopt their playground politics and now they have been maneuvered into not only taking the hits for their administrations many failures but also punting their anti Westminster line. I have to hand it to the SNP for smart politics. Of course the city will suffer but that's not something the SNP care about as long as they are in power.

Another Sir Geoffrey moment

The Full Council meeting lasted from 10am to 9.05pm yesterday which is why I haven't blogged since Wednesday.

Its another 11 hours of my life that I won't get back but whats most bizarre is that the SNP/Libdem mal-administration seem to think its our fault that the meetings drag on. They are supposed to be in charge, their Lord Provost chairs the meetings, they set the agenda but somehow the meeting dragging on is our fault?! Once more in office but not in charge...

A new era for all of us

Tonight at around 6.15pm, Andrew Burns was elected Group leader and I returned to being a back bencher.

Its not been an easy decision but it is, I am very sure, the right one for myself and for the Group.

Andrew will great for the Group. Just from how he spoke tonight I know he has a clear and focused vision of what the next 4 years will mean for all of us as a Group and how we can make sure we are best positioned for the election in 2012.

And what is even better is that we have not missed a step in the transition. Instead we have continued to make sure the SNP/Libdem mal-administration remain exposed for their incompetence and ineffectual leadership of the city. And despite my new job, I will play my part as fully as possible.

Then the people spoke

Tonight our neighbourhood partnership, which I chair, came of age. The people in the audience expressed their view on the so called "Fairer Scotland fund" and they were angry. Not at the fund as such but at the sheer incompetence at how it has been handled.

One woman said she felt cheated by the top down narrow criteria set by the Edinburgh partnership, which is chaired by the SNP/Libdem mal-administration.

Another told of how she felt all the work she and others had put into creating a genuine local plan was lost in one decision.

A third spoke of her anger at a process that was not clear and the more it was explained, was less and less clear.

It was controlled and clear, but it was anger. And it will only get worse

Another wee step forward for the Creative City

I attended the Culture and Leisure committee today to see the Council finally affirm its support for the Poetry in St Andrews Garden project that I convene. Its been a tortuous route to get here but at least they have done it.

I think that this project is one of the best things I have been involved with. Its simple. Its about creativity and its a celebration of the idea and the soul of this city. Look out for events in August and September and beyond. It is exciting times...even on the Council!

A brave new step for the Mela

I went to the launch of the 2008 Edinburgh Mela's programme today. Made my heart sign!. The Mela is a true celebration of celebration of diversity and difference

The programme (biggest ever) will speak for itself and the new waterfront venue will be a great improvement, but I just wanted to say that the New director, Liam Sinclair got it right today when he finished his introduction to the programme when he said words to the effect of, "in a world where we are sometimes scared to highlight difference, the Mela helps us understand that difference can teach us our common bonds"

A new leader for Edinburgh Labour

I am now leader of the Labour Group on Edinburgh Council in name only. Andrew Burns will be the only name going forward on Tuesday evening and barring some unforseen event he will be leader at the end of what will be a very short meeting. I offer Andrew my wholehearted support and congratulations.

I am glad that the Group has acted quickly. It is important that we are not thrown of course from our primary task of calling this incompetent SNP/Libdem mal-administration to account, something we have begun to do pretty well in recent months,

Andrew will lead us well. He has the skills and the experience and most importantly, the people skills and I leave this role in the Edinburgh Council Labour Group in good hands.

I do not leave the Group though and there will be new things for me to do in due course, foreseen and unforeseen, as we continue to stand up for those who we have been elected to represent, especially those who feel that they are being ignored by the SNP and the Libdems, a group that is growing daily and fast.

We need to think differently

I came across this excellent comment piece from Frank Rich in the NY Times that seems to shatter the received wisdom that many of Hillary Clintons supporters are shifting Party's to support John McCain rather than stick with Barak Obama. I hope his conclusions are correct.

Although I was not sure about Obama during the campaign, there is no doubt that 4 or 8 more years of a Republican party presidency would be an utter disaster for the rest of the world as well as for America. Obama, on the other hand, does bring the promise of change and a fresh perspective which might lead to similar things in other places, including Britain.

Alistair Darling's comments in the New Statesman last week suggest that such thinking is beginning to get to where it needs to and I remain ever optimistic that we can still stop that other political disaster, a Tory Government in Westminster in 2010.

And the news from planet zorg is...

In a recent article in Holyrood Magazine, the claim was made by the SNP that "the relationship between national and local government used to be much more top down”

I wonder what colour the sky is on their planet?

When I was involved n CoSLA I was regularly part of discussions with ministers about the direction and content of legislation long before it hit the statute book. CoSLA bills teams helped shaped legislation and the guidance that went with time. In the case of the revolutionary Additional Support for Learning Act, CoSLA was also at the heart of the group that wrote the guidance because then Labour Led Scottish Executive understood it was local authorities who would be implementing the act.

In contrast, the so called concordat has left local authorities with the task of delivering aspirations of the Government’s Manifesto that they cannot fund whilst being in severe danger of being in the blame game firing line as those national commitments are not achieved.

I wish that they would concentrates on the challenge at hand, that of bringing the Government to account, and not on re-writing a history that they confess in the same article that they were not part of.

Poetry in the garden

I am looking froward be being at the investing (if that is the right word), of the 3rd Edinburgh Makar, who is Ron Butlin.

I have always found poetry to be such an amazingly evocative use of language, sometimes just by its very sparseness. Sometimes the very few words like.. can capture a moment or an idea far better than even the most powerful prose or much manipulated soundbites. That's why I set up and still convene the group dedicated to Poetry in St Andrews garden following an inspired idea by Fay Young.

This group, made up of people like the Edinburgh Book Festival, the Scottish Poetry Library, the City of Literature, the Edinburgh City centre Management company and many more, will be promoting poetry in as many ways as possible in the Garden. The first project is to put poetry on the walls and the napkins of the Coffee Republic outlet in the Garden. They have kindly agreed not only to do this but to pay for it.

There will be much more to come and I look froward to the new Makar being part of the project as his predecessor Valerie Gillies

Prioities and pounds..

A long meeting yesterday about the Youth Bus saw us agree a new structure and welcome a £20,000 grant from the "cashback for communities" fund which will see us through the next year despite council cuts in other funding.

Today I spent 2 hours discussing the so called "Fairer Scotland Fund". The way this administration has arbitrarily chosen 3 or the 8 national criteria to use for this fund has put several valuable projects under threat, including the Lochend Community Resource Centre, which houses the Credit Union, the food co-op, the benefits advice group and the employment support group. The Community Newspaper the Speaker is also under threat as is the post we created for a community worker who has done a brilliant job developing and supporting local groups who don't have paid staff

The SNP/Libdems just don''t get it. They believe that success can be counted and nurturing communities is expressed by numbers alone. I will fight tooth and nail for these projects because they do make a difference to real peoples lives and if we loose them its the whole community that will suffer.

Cubs, dads and Salutes

Recovering in some pain from making my body do things it hasn't done for 30 years whilst at Parent and cub camp this weekend at Bonaly scout campsite with my son. We had a brilliant time though we were robbed at the football, (another story for another day!).

The Scouts are often the butt of jokes but how many other organisations offer that kind of time for fathers and sons to be together. The role of fatherhood is in a difficulty place in 21st century Britain. No longer the assumed breadwinner and having, (quite rightly), to change their views of the role of women in the family as well as the workplace, what it is to be a father is no longer clearcut and underpinned by societies structures.

There are many reasons to be grateful for that change but the price of it is that many men struggle with that search for how to be a father. I would not for a moment advocate a return to the old patriarchal family structure but the journey, as a dad, to somewhere new here the idea of what it is to be a father makes some sense and is meaningful is a long and as yet unclear one.

Back to cubs scouts however, and I know this is a bit late but the story that a young lad was refused a place in the cubs because he wouldn't pledge allegiance to the queen was a serious shot in the foot by the scout association. Who has won here.? The boy can't be what he wanted to be, a cub, and the Scout association look foolish for not being creative enough to find a way of including him, especially as he was willing to swear allegiance to God and to the Country.

Good grief, at least he was honest about what he believed in! Thousands of cubs swear allegiance to God without meaning it but say nothing because they want to be a cub. Surely a bit of creative thinking would have keep the boy in the cubs and the Association off the front pages.

Never trust an airbrushed politician

I was seriously bemused by the decision of some of the Libdems in Edinburgh to send in "makeover" photos of themselves to the Edinburgh Evening News asking for them to be used instead of the ones that show them in real life.....

I now discover from someone who knows about these things that the photos have been "airbrushed" to remove some of their facial lines etc. Clearly the pre photo makeover wasn't thorough enough!

What these individuals and their SNP colleagues will find out soon enough is that folk want things as they are, in the raw. they want the truth, not just about our policies but about us. I mean...Would you trust a politician who believes in airbrushing out the truth...

A great place and a great space for kids

I am not in the habit of promoting private businesses but today i will make an exception.

I was delighted to be asked to open today the newly refurbished children's play centre Clownaround which can be found at unit 2+3 109 Restalrig Rd . I helped the dynamic owner and manager Julie in a small way get things started a few years ago and its been a huge success.

The reason it is a success is that Julie understood from the word go that she was not simply running a business but providing something for her community, (she lives locally), that the community needed. She uses the business to support other local community projects like Craigentinny Playgroup and the Speaker newspaper. She has taken this attitude further by including a sensory room in her refurbishment which will be a great resources for kids with learning difficulties.

But most of all my kids love it and that has to be the best benchmark of a quality service. And if my word is not enough, here's review from another customer that says it all.

A new commitment!

This Frank Boyle cartoon made my day!

Actually in recent times I have only worn a hoop and a stud in my earlob because I was told my a number of folk that it was a distraction when I was on the telly! Not that I was on every day or anything but often enough and without much warning that I decided just to stop wearing the more exotic parts of my collection.

Given all that is going to change, and thanks to Frank Boyle's inspiration, I think I will dust down that old collection and give them a good run out again before leaving them to anyone in particular!

Seize the day......

I walked into the office today and was immediately asked "any regrets?"!

The answer was a resounding no. I am sorry that the group has to go through an election but well handled, (and it will be), it can and will be turned into an opportunity for saying where next for the group.

I expect that there will be a contest. That will be good for the Labour group and for the Party. Who makes up the contestants, well that is for others to say, but a contest is what we need.

We have come out of the first year of opposition having made some serious inroads into the coalition which has even less direction or ability to make decisions that it did when it started, if that were possible, but we need to do much more than expose their incompetence, easy as that is.

We need to continue with the journey back to our roots and also continue to lay out a vision for the city as that is something that is clearly outside the SNP/Libdems administrations skill set.

There is no such thing as a "good time" for theses things to happen. There is simply an opportunity to be grasped or otherwise. I have grasped mine. I am confident that the Group will grasp theirs and the City will be better for it.

Silence and traffic lights won't do!

Policy and Strategy Commitee, which met today, remains an experience that bears no relation to its title.

The Corporate monitoring report which we discussed today, helpfully has little "traffic lights" to say whether a particular area of work is on target or not, red being not on target etc. I asked lots of questions about several that had red lights as I thought that was the job of the opposition, to ask questions and scrutinise things that were not going well. Apparently not. It was clear that this was not appreciated by the SNP/Libdem administration who were irritated by the number of questions I was asking. Of course, they want to use traffic lights to stop people talking whilst I wanted to talk about the reason for the red lights....

Anyway, several of my questions were about the failure to meet homelessness targets. The honest answer I recieved from the officer was until we sort out our housing supply, we will never meet our targets. Not surprising as we all know we are in a housing crisis now, but what surprising was later on the the meeting we were responding to the Scottish Government's Consultation on poverty, the section on funding for affordable housing had the pathetic and wishy washy line "it would be helpful if the formula was changed"!

I got them to change it for something much more robust but no wonder we are struggling if we praise a cut in funding as success (see here) but then beat about the bush when we have a chance to stand up for Edinburgh.

A big decision not taken lightly

Even though this post is about me it has, of course, been pre-empted by my esteemed colleague Andrew Burns who knows everything before anyone else it would appear!

Anyway, big decision time for me.

I will be announcing today that I am stepping down as Leader of the Labour Group on the City of Edinburgh Council to take up a post in the Church of Scotland as Secretary to the Church and Society Council. I allowed my name to forward for this post because a number of folk in the church whose view I respect encouraged me to apply. It is about doing what I have alway done but in a different place.

I will remain as the Labour Councillor for Craigentinny/Duddingston Ward on City of Edinburgh Council

The Church and Society Council, one of the 6 main departments of the Church of Scotland, develops the churches view on political, social and ethical issues and finds the best ways for those views to be heard at all levels of society, nationally and locally

I have always described myself as a minister who happens to be a politician. After 9 years at the heart of local government in Edinburgh and three years nationally as CoSLA spokesperson on Education, this post is the next step in that journey and I am very excited about the opportunities it offers.

I will remain a councillor and a Labour Group member but it would not be tenable to be speaking for the Church and for Edinburgh Labour.

It has been an honour and a privilege to serve as Leader of the Labour Group both when we were in power and now in opposition. I want to thank the Labour Group, all of whom have been hugely supportive of me in my time as Group Leader and I look forward to be able to offer the same high level of support to my successor.

This will have ramifications for this blog too. I will need to change its focus a little, otherwise I will cause that very confusion I am trying to avoid, but that is for another day and I certainly intend to keep blogging!

Another Sunny day in Leith

Just in from another bright sunny Leith festival Gala day on the links. This years pageant started from Lochend park in my ward and was its usual display of multi-cultural leith. The first free black family record in Leith was in the 17th century in the records of South Leith Church Kirk Session so diversity is not a new idea to your average leither.

The festival is a week long affair but the day on the Links is always the climax with music, dance, stall, food and the ubiquitous tug of war.

At one of the many stalls we bought one of these churns and a plant... It seemed like a good plan at the time..

It did strike me though that once again what we talk of as a Festival or gala day or community event so often comes down to buying and selling. This is not in any way a criticism of Leith festival, or any other such event, simply a reflection of how we are so caught in the world of commercial exchange that it substitutes, or at least is seen as a necessary part of any community gathering.

This is of course, not new. Market day was the cultural highlight of the lives of our predecessors long before the advent of today's combination of burger vans, second hand goods , home made jewellery and wee toys for the weans. Again, this is not pejorative list, simply a question as to whether we could manage to gather together in community to celebrate what we have without having to have things to buy and sell. Maybe not, but I wish it were possible

more words that do not match actions

The so called "Fairer Scotland Fund" is an amalgamation of several funds to help areas of regeneration.

The SNP Government have set 8 objectives for the fund and to be honest, they are board enough to be not a bad selection of priorities.

The trouble is the SNP/Libdem administration has decided to do two things with this cash (around£7m for Edinburgh). Firstly, with minimal consultation with the areas affected, they have picked 3 of 8 targets and said if you don't fit, you don't get cash, putting at risk hundreds of projects vital to local communities. They have done this so they can secondly, "top slice" cash to pay for things they have not budgets for.

This has seriously annoyed many folk. As Convener of the Craigentinny/Duddingston Neighbourhood Partnership, their centralising, top down attitude means I and my colleagues are going to have make decisions about our area to their agenda including cutting groups we want to see in our area. I am seriously annoyed about this as are many local activists. I sent a letter on behalf of the Craigentinny/Duddingston Partnership to the leadership which I print in full below. This is not the end of the fight!.

Dear Councillor Dawe

I write on behalf of the Craigentinny/Duddingston Neighbourhood Partnership following a recent meeting regarding the distribution criteria for the Fairer Scotland Fund.

The partnership wishes to object in the strongest terms to the following issues:

1 We have no objection to the Government setting eight objectives for the fund, which is the prerogative of Government. We believe, however, that the decision by the Edinburgh Partnership to select three of the eight objectives set by the Government with minimal consultation, no explanations as to why they have been chosen and no reference to Neighbourhood Partnerships who will have to implement the consequences of the decision, are unacceptable.

We believe this flies in the face of the first principles of Neighbourhood Partnerships which are to devolve decision-making to the lowest level to allow direct democratic accountability within each community, the needs of each community are different. Their history is different and their strengths are different. By imposing three priorities on every neighbourhood you remove the very flexibility that Neighbourhood Partnerships were designed to bring. We would urge you not to restrict Neighbourhood Partnerships to three objectives set centrally. If the view is that there needs to be prioritisation, then let each neighbourhood prioritise. That is what happened in our area with the Regeneration Outcome Agreements, under the old CRF funding it would mean the objective chosen would be much more likely to meet the need of the local plan and better reflect the circumstances in each neighbourhood.

2 The apparent decision by the implementation group that only those organisations involved in service delivery can be funded, and organisations that support others to deliver objectives cannot be funded, is madness. In communities like ours where the capacity is low, where there are few organisation with paid staff and where the expenditure on capacity building has been not to create bureaucracy but in real posts with real returns, to remove this support would seriously hamper the ability of those in the front line from doing the job they are funded to do. By providing this support, many organisations will be able to deliver the objectives of the Fairer Scotland Fund but do so with very few and at times no paid staff. Through this support, we were able to provide training expertise, organisational support, advice on funding, child protection, governance and a great deal else which mean projects didn’t have to continually reinvent the wheel. We believe it is a mistake to remove this method of support without being able to offer clear and concrete methods of replacing it to the same levels.

3 The £10k threshold excludes organisations who are able to deliver a great deal for much less, often because they run entirely through volunteers or are projects that receive a great deal of support in kind. We believe this threshold is not a suitable benchmark to use when identifying if an organisation is able to deliver real and lasting outcomes.

We would appreciate you bringing these issues to the attention of the Edinburgh Partnership at your meetings on 6 and 20 June.

Yours sincerely
Councillor Ewan Aitken
Convener, Craigentinny/Duddingston Neighbourhood Partnership

Another day another decision

I am aware that most of my posts are comments in various ways on the decisions and perspectives of others, something I do not apologise for, but tonight I want to do something different. I want to simply tell you about my day.

Today I had seven meetings and dealt with several constituents, including 3 who are in need of help having got themselves into trouble.

The meetings included folk wanting advice on getting their ideas across to the council, a trams update, a conversation with a former colleague now working in the Civil Service, a group of constituents planning a community project and a meeting with Trade Union representatives.

Nothing prepares you for this job. Nothing guides you about how to handle the variety or subjects not the breadth of demands. For each meeting I had to decide how to respond in a way that was consistent with what I believe, honest about what I could achieve and truthful about what I though of what was being presented without judging the presenters.

Why am I telling you this? Not for sympathy. That would be wasted (and probably unlikely!). Perhaps to give a wee hint about the challenge of democratic accountability and the needs and yet pressures of being as available as I can be. I don't know if I made the right decision in every case, In some, there is no "right decisions" only that it needed a decision and I needed to take decisions that I can defend and still be true to myself.

For if day reminded me of anything, it was that no-one can manage in political life, even at my lowly level without knowing what they believe about what matters and being true to oneself in all that we do. To do otherwise will not simply mean we make mistakes but we will not survive.

Another False Dawn for social housing!

The SNP Government announcement that Edinburgh will get £36m for Housing Associations Grants (HAG) to build social housing is even worse that I thought yesterday.

If this total is the same as last year it means in real terms a cut because construction inflation is still rising despite the credit crunch. Yet the SNP/Libdem administration have announced this as a “good result” for Edinburgh as it makes Edinburgh and Glasgow the only authorities to receive the same cash total as last year, all others getting much less!

I am told that the assumption is that Housing Associations will have to make 25% efficiencies to produce the same number of houses for this cash and borrow on a market that is decidedly shaky The only way they will make the sums add up is to put up rents. The cuts to the HAG have been redirected to the shared equity schemes to make up for the SNP broken promise of £2000 for first time buyers so in reality it will be those renting social housing who will be paying for others to be able to buy..

Standing up for Edinburgh apparently means being pleased when others get hammered but we are just cut the rate of inflation, the poor get screwed and not a peep about another broken promise. Not good benchmarks of success in my book...

Another broken promise

Once again the SNP Government break promises. This time on support for Edinburgh as the Capital city by not increasing the cash we get for affordable housing. The £36m announced this week is only the same as we previously received and its just not enough to build the 1200 new homes we need every year.

Edinburgh needs homes for those many folk whose hard work make its economy so successful but who can't afford the house prices that same economic growth has created. If these folk are all forced to move out, then congestion will increase and the workforce will not be so available to keep the economy where it needs to be, not just for Edinburgh but for Scotland. Edinburgh could become strangled by its own success,

Our need is a different need to places will higher deprivation, but its a need that, if not met, will have devastating consequences for the nation as a whole.

The case has been made, loud and clear. Edinburgh has a housing crisis, NOW. The SNP said they would listen. But instead once again we risk being hurt on the shards of yet another SNP broken promise.