Norway’s undying
gratitude
to Shetland
With one final
shove, the bin
clicked shut
The tree I’ve
just planted
on a dump
Finulla McCloskey, 18, the youngest delegate on the recent Young Scotland Programme, writes for SR
Click here
Callum, born 100 years ago this week, stood for no half-measures
Tessa Ransford’s anniversary tribute
to her husband
Get SR free in
your inbox three
times a week
Click here
Lockerbie
An overview by Morag Kerr of the Justice for Megrahi Committee
Click here
The Cafe
The Cafe is our readers’ forum. Send your contribution to islay@scottishreview.net
Today’s banner
Blossom in the East End of Glasgow
Photograph by
Islay McLeod
A few good
reasons for n0t
voting today
Kenneth Roy
Finally there is the ghastliness of the council itself, its witless, spiritless incompetence, its lack of vision, its utter want of creativity. I doubt that
any other council in Scotland could boast of having closed both the theatres in its main town as South Ayrshire has done.
Then there is the uninspiring nature of the candidates. The gender balance is poor, though not a complete disaster: 30 men, 14 women. But most of them are terribly old. The Tories in particular might have escaped from a museum of antiquities. Of the 44 all-comers, I would guess that two are under the age of 35 – and both are Lib Dems. About most of the others there is a look of chubby complacency which one would dearly love to prick with the proverbial sharp pin. If politics is showbiz for the ugly, local politics is showbiz for the bus pass. Look (as Tony used to say), I have nothing against the elderly in politics. It gives the poor dears something to do. It’s the lack of a cross-section that concerns me.
The idealistic young – the people who take part in our Young Scotland Programme and whose papers have been appearing in this magazine in recent weeks – feel detached from local politics and divert their energies elsewhere. I don’t blame them.
Finally there is the ghastliness of the council itself, its witless, spiritless incompetence, its lack of vision, its utter want of creativity. I doubt that any other council in Scotland could boast of having closed both the theatres in its main town as South Ayrshire has done. The Civic, once known for its summer repertory season, has been demolished while the dear old Gaiety is left empty and dark year after year. Alex Neil, who lives in Ayr, calls it a scandal. He is right.
This inept bunch have also allowed Ayr town centre to be reduced to a sad, derelict, boarded-up dump. Of course this is true of other towns in Scotland. Which is why I recommend that all our great towns – Paisley, Kirkcaldy, Dunfermline, Ayr, Perth, Kilmarnock, Inverness, Greenock, Falkirk, Stirling, Dumfries and Motherwell, along with the four new towns of East Kilbride, Livingston, Cumbernauld and Glenrothes – should be self-governing local authorities in their own right, enjoying the same privileges as the four cities, with elected mayors (or whatever we decide to call them) and a brief to create citadels of excellence.
Nothing in Scotland has been more comprehensively botched than successive attempts to reorganise local government. The ultra-efficient Swiss, with a population of 7.5 million, have 3,000 councils (‘communes’ as they are called). The less than efficient Scots, with a population of 5 million, have 32 remote, unpopular authorities for which, I predict, a significant minority of the electorate – perhaps a majority – will fail to vote because they are so disenchanted with the state of local democracy.
There is a final, final reason for staying away from the polls today. If there is a derisory poll – a really humiliating one – it may encourage Alex Salmond to have a go at reforming local government and making a better fist of it than any of his predecessors. He could not do worse, that’s for sure.
Kenneth Roy is editor of the Scottish Review
