Tories guilty of ‘silly political point-scoring’? You decide – John McLellan

Who rattled his cage? Edinburgh’s Labour leader Cammy Day was quick to blame “silly political point-scoring” by Conservatives on the withdrawal of a move to re-appoint his colleague Lezley Marion Cameron as Edinburgh Council’s vice convenor of finance.

Well, boo-hoo. I have nothing against Cllr Cameron, but even the most naïve observer of local politics would accept that someone who had difficulty with both her travel expenses and council tax bill might not be the most appropriate person to be second-in-command of the city council’s piggy bank.

Readers may remember that Cllr Cameron had to resign from the role last October after her £1500 taxi bill was revealed, a quarter of the total claimed by all councillors (I’ve never used one) over two years. Graciously, she reimbursed £35. It also emerged that Cllr Cameron had to be sent a letter about her outstanding council tax bill.

And back in April, Cllr Day had to give her a ticking off for allegedly breaking lockdown rules by visiting an emergency-only ‘resilience centre’, apparently to enquire about lift cleaning in multi-storey flats.

It might be convenient for Cllr Day to blame the Conservatives for what he called an “orchestrated campaign”, but he’ll find it was his pals in the Greens who made the first approaches to see if there was a united opposition front to block the appointment.

As far as orchestration goes, it was hardly Sir Simon Rattle, but it certainly rattled the administration enough to pull the plug and the administration plans to have another go in a month’s time.

The question is, will the Greens play along?

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