Advertiser View SNP relegated to sidelines

Imagine the outcry if Celtic were denied the title because Rangers gifted their points to Aberdeen, thus elevating the Dons into top spot and the history books.

That’s right, you can’t because the concept is outright absurd.

However, a scenario of similar absurdity has played out, not at the national game’s Hampden HQ, but rather the hub of an altogether more ruthless pastime – local politics.

Motherwell Civic Centre, the seat of power for North Lanarkshire Council, was the venue last Thursday night when a group of eight newly-elected Conservative councillors gifted their votes to the Labour group and elevated Jim Logue to the local authority leadership and his team into the role of decision makers for the next five years.

In doing so they chose to ignore the inconvenient truth that the SNP achieved more representation than any other party, with 33 councillors to Labour’s 32.

They also displayed a blatant disregard for the 42,000 North Lanarkshire residents who used their first-preference votes for the SNP – 6000 more than Labour and 25,000 more than their own party.

At the conclusion of every election a large number of people are left dissatisfied. That’s politics.

However, this latest development means many thousands of North Lanarkshire voters have been left not only dissatisfied but completely disillusioned.

The Advertiser maintains a neutral political position, however this is about more than petty squabbling.

This is about fair play. It’s about what’s right. It’s about democracy.

And last week’s council carve-up was about as close to democracy as Kim Jong Un’s approval ratings in North Korea are of plummeting below 110 per cent.

An administration without the participation of the most prominent party may not be unprecedented but it is unethical, certain to be unpopular and may very well prove unworkable.