The Courier & Advertiser (Angus and Dundee)
Read Monday Matters
ELECTION: Choppy waters ahead for new crew members on the good ship Angus
On the way into work on Friday morning I stopped at the Balgavies Loch viewpoint.
It was a brief moment to enjoy the Angus sunshine and calm waters ahead of a day which would see a tide of change sweep across Angus politics akin to that of the North Sea’s assault on Montrose’s historic links.
Despite the polling station’s revolving door for voters of late, any expected fed-upness of Angus folk didn’t materialise as turnouts easily bettered those of 2012 – although critics would still say a 50-50 stay at home rate is hardly a ringing endorsement of popularity for anyone.
And, after the papers were poured out, fed into the counting machines and calculated under the single transferrable vote system, which requires a mathematical brain way beyond the simplicity of this one to fathom out, a swell of Tory blue and Independent grey dampened the Nationalists’ pride in success which has characterised virtually every Angus count I’ve covered.
Even in victory, a number of Nats looked drookit in disappointment as the eight wards were called and the steady drip of shocks continued.
Not quite a tsunami, but the new political make-up of Angus Council – nine each for the Nats and Independents, eight Tories and a couple of Lib Dems – is uncharted waters.
A hung council was pretty much always on the cards, but well before the final surprise of Friday, minds were already working on how and where new power might be placed.
This new crew will embark on a good ship Angus which, for a number of years now, has been negotiating choppy waters in perilous financial seas and with a Bermuda Triangle-sized black hole looming large on the horizon.
At official level, the chief executive captain is also about to hang up his hat and sail off into the sunset of retirement.
But under the Transforming Angus programme, a course has already been charted and switching from that would be like trying to turn an oil tanker.