By George Council elections are vital to communities
Well, we have come through another period of local government elections determining how our local services will be provided.
Sometimes people have the feeling that these elections are less important than others and this can be seen in the lower turnout.
Actually, this level of government produces some of the services that we have daily interactions with, such as bin uplifts, recycling, housing, the condition of our roads, the care system and education.
These are of vital importance and how they are run should be something that we are aware of, many of us dealing with these services on a daily basis.
Now that the dust has settled, we must look at our priorities and how our services continue to be delivered and developed on an everyday basis.
Above all, we should all experience these services and they should be delivered with a sense of fairness.
Fairness and equality should be at the heart of service delivery for councils.
This is true of any council leadership, no matter their political colour or affiliation.
Dogma should never be a priority when delivering for any of the people of Scotland.
Political dogma is something we have seen for a long time in Scotland.
We haven’t voted for a Tory government since 1955.
Since then, we have had almost 50 years of Tory governments making decisions which we obviously didn’t agree with or intend for our country. To me, that is not democracy.
Our votes, our priorities, they way we wanted to be governed was basically just disregarded.
I know there are people who would say this is the part we play in the UK. I may say that is the price we pay in the UK.
Some may even claim that it was democracy, that all the votes of the four nations in the UK were taken into consideration.
OK, this is where dogma rears its head again.
Those who unblinkingly think they are right and the UK must continue to march forward no matter what.
One issue with that is legality. The right to self-determination is part of international law.
In article 1(2) of the United Nations Charter it puts in law the right to selfdetermination of people.
It is quite something when you hear certain individuals or governments claim that they will not allow the selfdetermination of the people of Scotland as if it is in their power or ability to make a personal decision against giving the people a say.
It is up to the people to make that choice and must not be under the influence of other nations or interests.
So basically stating or influencing a decision that must be made by the people is against international law.
That is what happens when dogma takes over. We say it is up to the people to make that choice. Others say it is up to them.
This is the kind of disregard we are seeing all to frequently at the moment. One rule for them, the elite and those at the top of the self interest pile, thinking they can do as they will.
I prefer to listen to the people.