In Edinburgh this year, this means we get to vote for the wonderful city council. Now many people might feel that after the debacle over the trams last year, when it took the intervention of Holyrood to stop the muppets coming up with the most crazy solutions possible to a calamity largely of their own making, that none of them deserve to get back in and I would have some sympathy with that view.
Actually there are some decent councillors in all parties. Unfortunately there are also some complete numpties and in party politics, unlike in a bottle of milk, the cream doesn't always rise to the top.
What are they standing for?
This is a completely biased and firmly tongue in cheek view of what the various parties will do if elected, gathered from the various bits of paper they have so far put through my letter box (and the ones that I have put through other people's on behalf of the Greens).
SNP - are very proud of their council tax freeze and reducing council spending (that's what's known as cuts when the evil coalition do it at a national level). They're also very proud of taking absolutely no responsibility whatsoever for anything unpopular or cack-handed that the current (LD-SNP) administration has done - and there sure are a lot of them.
Conservatives - seem to be very unhappy and very concerned about any number of different things. (Well, let's face it, as Tories in Scotland they have a lot to be unhappy and concerned about).
The Lib-Dems - seem to be very proud of lots of roadworks and holes in the ground and buiding sites- their leaflet featured at least 4 photos of such. Given the current state of Edinburgh this seems like a curious electoral strategy, but maybe they can see the writing on the wall and it's all just an elaborate electoral suicide note.
Labour - have yet to give me a leaflet - odd as they actually do have a councillor for this ward. But I do know that they, in contrast to the LDs, are promising no more holes in the ground, ever, even if they're desperately needed. Oh, and they're hoping that you will have forgotten that they were in power up until 2007 and helped to contribute to the mess that the current lot have made such a mess of sorting out.
And nobody, but nobody is mentioning the Trams.
Being equally biased, but less tongue in cheek, the Greens are standing for promoting renewables and energy efficiency on a community level, safer cycle routes, protecting local businesses, giving local communities more say over how money is spent in their areas through initiatives such as £eith Decides and protecting the city's green spaces, amongst other things. I could go on, but you can read more here if you're interested.
So what's likely to happen?
One thing we can say for sure is that no party will have outright control of the council for the simple reason that no party is fielding enough candidates to take outright control.
The LD vote is likely to crash as it did last may and in the City Cenre by-election in August (when they lost almost two-thirds of their vote share). They recognise this - only fielding 1 candidate per ward and effectively giving up two seats before a vote has been cast. Many of the sitting councillors are not re-standing.
The SNP will probably gain seats, but maybe not do as spectacularly well as last May.
Labour should also be looking to pick up seats - 2007 was not a good year for them. But they should have been looking to make gains last year as well and look how that worked out for them.
Having looked into it, I'd hazard a guess that the post-election council chamber may look something like this:
SNP 19 (+7)
Lab 18 (+3)
Con 11 (no change)
LD 6 (-11)
Grn 4 (+1)
Although I'm hopeful and cautiously optimistic that there may be a few more Greens than that.
Now, according to the unwritten rules of Scottish politics, nobody wants to work with the Tories. The SNP group leader, the delightful Steve Cardownie, seems to be doing his best to alienate all possible coalition partners and even if an agreement could be reached for a traffic light coalition (red-orange-green) they may not have the seats for a majority.
Now, a minority administration might not be a bad thing, it could force a lot of issue-by-issue negotiation which could bring creative solutions to Edinburgh's many problems. It would require skill and delicacy in handling though, neither of which are qualities the various party leaders in Edinburgh seem to possess in much abundance. Which leads me to:
An passionate plea to voters in Forth ward:
If you are thinking of voting SNP, give the guy who's not Cardownie your 1st preference and then put your ballot in the box without a 2nd thought. Edinburgh will be always in your debt.
Meadows/Morningside - a 2nd preference dilemma.
We all know who's going to get my first preference and I'm fairly confident that the Green candidate here, Melanie Main, will get in and do a great job as councillor. However, I'm not sure how to then express my other preferences. I have a choice of 6 other candidates: Conservative, Lib-Dem, UKIP, SNP, Labour and Pirate. It may all well be academic as Melanie may not be elected until the 3rd or 4th councillor for the ward, in which case the vote transfers will matter little, but just in case...
Normally my second choice would be Lib-Dem, but their candidate is now council leader Jenny Dawe, moving here from her previous ward as she was going to be outperformed there by her party colleague and lose her seat. I just cannot bring myself to express any preference for her at all. Similarly, I could never express any preference for UKIP except in a straight choice between them and the far right.
The conservative councillor actually seems to have done a decent job, but is probably the most likely to be elected first without the need for transfers. Besides which, I don't like what the party stands for and I'm proud of my record of never having voted for them (even a second preference). The same record applies to Labour and their councillor seems to have been rather anonymous in this part of the ward from what I've seen apart from failing to get elected as an MSP last year.
The SNP are not a party I'm overly fond of at the moment either and they've certainly contributed to the mess of the current council, but their candidate quite impressed me when he stood for Westminster in 2010.
So, I'm thinking:
1. Green (of course)
2. Pirate (as I may never have another chance to vote for a Pirate)
3. SNP (on the off-chance the final seat will come down to either them or the LDs).
UPDATE - I've now had a leaflet from Labour and am none the wiser what they're standing for.
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