NOTEBOOK by Bill Heaney
There is an election taking place in West Dunbartonshire this week. I don’t know why they bother asking people to vote.
Everyone knows West Dunbartonshire Council is a basket case. The SNP started the ball rolling with their mad budget cuts – not cutting the grass and all that – when they held the upper hand in Church Street.
And now that Labour have wrested power from the slippery fingers of Councillor Jonathan (Baggy Pants) McColl, they have done nothing to turn the council ship away from the rocks.
It has often been said that our councillors are lazy and that they are only in it for the money.
In my book that is pretty accurate when you look around the council’s not fit for purpose £16 million chamber and view what we’ve got there.
Don’t expect to hear the councillors. I got thrown out for asking them to turn up the sound. I’ve been banned even by this hang ’em, birch ’em, boil ’em in oil brigade, who claim they are progressive.
If the Labour government, which will inevitably get into power in 20-odd days’ time, resembles this council lot in any way then voters should be advised to get a clothes-pin out and hold their nose.
If I were Jackie Baillie or Anas Sarwar I would be embarrassed to call them comrades.
If Provost Douglas McAllister wins the Westminster seat, which he won’t because of the shambles his leader, Cllr Martin Rooney, and others such as David McBride, Michelle McGinty, Clare Steel and Hazel Sorrell, have made of our towns and countryside, it will be because the community has suffered a collective abberation.
People posting their ballot papers would have to forget about the damp housing, the housing shortage emergency, the potholes in our roads, the covid deaths in our care homes, and the encouragement given to Flamingo Land to come to Balloch …
Councillors are a lazy bunch, as alleged by people in the know, who work only part-time because when anything difficult comes across their desk, they shuffle it off to their officials.
There is no blushing when it comes to picking up their substantial pay packet. No food banks for them, thank you.
Provost Douglas McAllister and Labour Group leader Cllr Martin Rooney and (centre) unelected Amanda Graham, who makes their decisions for them.
And their officials, such as Amanda Graham, who appears to have more jobs than Douglas (Three Jobs) Ross on the back of having a good shorthand note, make their decisions for them.
Ms Graham’s not been elected to make any decisions. Nobody ever voted for her to represent them.
Which takes me back to my original point about why they bother to have elections at all.
The by-election in West Dunbartonshire is for the Clydebank Central seat which was vacated, but not hastily I must add (there was still money to be made), by sex offender Labour’s Craig Edward, who had a collection of pornographic pictures of children and babies. And went to jail for that.
Recent events have shown that we are over provisioned with politicians who are money mad and sex obsessed if we include Donald Trump and Stormy Daniels in this swift pre-election notebook.
I think Alex Salmond summed it up beautifully this week when he described Douglas Ross’s shock departure from the Scottish Tory leadership as a rat deserting a sinking ship to climb aboard a gravy train.
*****
Well, I told you so yesterday. Trust and confidence in the UK’s politics and election system has never been worse.
And today that has been confirmed by no less a political figure than the electoral expert, Sir John Curtice.
His report for the National Centre for Social Research finds record numbers of voters saying they “almost never” trust governments to put country before party or politicians to tell the truth when in a tight corner.
“The public is as doubtful as it has ever been about the trustworthiness and efficacy of the country’s system of government and the people who comprise it,” said Sir John.
Watch out for the percentage polling figures from the by-election in Clydebank today (Thursday) when when sex offender Craig Edward’s seat comes up before the electorate.
Clydebank punters won’t be falling over themselves to get down to the polling stations to vote for or against the candidates whose names are virtually unknown to them.
Political scandals, expenses fiddling and sexual criminality, such as that committed by Craig Edward, are right up there as the main reasons for public disinterest.
The cost-of-living crisis is also to blame, but there’s hardly been a mention of that by the candidates who want to represent the Bankies on basket case West Dunbartonshire Council in Church Street.
Makes you wonder who, if anyone, vets the candidates as suitable to stand for election.
*****
I took a run down to Helensburgh this morning for a haircut, a McCann cut even in their smart Sinclair Street saloon.
The difference between Dumbarton and Helensburgh is night and day. West Clyde Street on the seafront looks smart and the pavements are safe to walk on, with no cars or vans parked ON them as is so often the case in Dumbarton.
And the place is clean. There was even a man with a barrow and a brush tidying the place up between pedestrians, who seemed to be enjoying doing their shopping.
It’s what you would expect really in 2024. I know comparisons are said to be odious, but there is some difference between Sinclair Street, Helensburgh, High Street, Dumbarton, and Main Street, Alexandria.
It couldn’t be that Helensburgh is looked after by Argyll and Bute Council and Dumbarton and the Vale are burdened with the gauleiters of West Dunbartonshire Council? Or could it?
Apparently Bill you are not banned from Council meetings now! It is believed that Crosslet House care home’s upper floor is now closed to residents due to lack of staff. You could check it out. You missed Councillor K Conaghan from list of councillors as she too has still to reply to emails re Flamingo Land objections etc despite reminders. If WDC is in such a state, and I think we would all agree it is, (look at vanity projects, like the Fountain in Alexandria) who is to blame? Who vets the decision makers? Also government levelling up money should not be given to councils without the government ensuring said Councils have got the basics right for their residents.
I’m maybe nit banned from meetings, Mary, but I am banned from speaking to their spin doctors, asking them questions. And they still hv no press facilities. When you see how they treat their staff (that disabled man who may soon receive £1 million in compensation to, public money. Basket case councillors. Don’t endorse their performance by voting for the Labour Provost at the General Election.
And Balloch Library, I feel that on just this one issue they have lost my one vote