Brendan O’Hara MP
‘COUNCIL TAX RISE WAS LAST STRAW’
BY the narrowest of margins - the cut of a pack of cards to be precise - the Tory/ LibDem coalition has been removed from power in Argyll and Bute Council.
A new administration, led by the SNP, and supported by Labour, Greens and Independents, will now try and undo the reputational damage caused to the authority by the Tories and the LibDems.
Their staggering incompetence saw them hike your council tax by 10 per cent, only to then perform a costly and humiliating U-turn a few days later by going cap-in-hand to the Scottish Government, where they accepted exactly the deal they were offered originally to impose a council tax freeze.
That the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats were prepared to let narrow, political self-interest blind them to the extent that they were willing to dump a massive tax rise on people of Argyll and Bute in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, rather than accept Scottish Government money to impose a council tax freeze, made them unfit for office.
But that politically motivated, selfdefeating little stunt, a stunt which is likely to cost people of Argyll and Bute more than £100,000, and which provoked a furious public backlash, proved to be the last straw.
Yet despite reducing Argyll and Bute to a national laughing stock, and regardless of the unedifying and very expensive fiasco into which they dragged Argyll and Bute, the Tories and the LibDems remained, to the bitter end, unrepentant, unapologetic, and desperately trying to cling on to power.
This time however, luck was on the side of the people, and the cut of the cards ensured that we now have a new political leadership in place in Kilmory.
We have a new council leader, Councillor Jim Lynch, leader of the SNP group. I’ve known Jim for many years, and have great confidence in his ability to find broad agreement across the council chamber on those many big, important decisions which are going to have to be taken in the next couple of years.
We also have a new Provost, and I cannot think of anyone better to act as the official representative of the people of Argyll and Bute that Councillor Dougie Philand.
Dougie is a hugely experienced councillor and has been re-elected time and again by the people of Mid Argyll.
I’m sure Jim, Dougie and their colleagues in the new administration will be like a breath of fresh air in the corridors of Kilmory, and I wish them every success.