Dumbarton Notebook by Bill Heaney
Beware of what you wish for. The candidates for the Dumbarton seat in the Scottish Parliament all want change, but should change arrive on May 7, it will come as a shock to many voters.
For a start, it could mean defeat for Dame Jackie Baillie, who has held Dumbarton since devolution led to the official opening of the Holyrood parliament in Edinburgh at the turn of the century.
It could lead, though, to significant celebrations in Argyll and Bute, Dumbarton and Clydebank and Milngavie for the Scottish National Party, which, we are informed by the polls, is far out in the lead at present and is uncatchable.
A tartan carpet could soon be laid out across the floors of the town halls in the main towns of these three constituencies.
And saltires flown in celebration of victory from the flag poles around the grey sandstone entrances.
West Dunbartonshire Council would need to act quickly to replace the tattered and torn saltire outside their Church Street headquarters, just around the corner from Jackie Baillie’s constituency office in Castle Street.
It could well be Labour No More in Dumbarton come a week on Friday morning.
If a majority goes to the SNP’s Sophie Traynor, who is yet a lassie in a tartan skirt with her only experience, lord help us on West Dunbartonshire Council, the residents of Dumbarton, Vale of Leven, Helensburgh, and Lomond will receive the change they are said to crave.
Candidates for the SNP in the Scottish Parliament election on May 7.
Sophie is local, caring, intelligent, and articulate. The kind of person we want to see attracted to politics, which has such a bad name.
Why have these catastrophes crashed down on the heads of the Labour Party, who have been in power almost continuously in Dumbarton and Clydebank since 1950?
Everything changes. There is the old saw that a week is a long time in politics, and that much can happen in just seven days.
Change isn’t just at the door in Dumbarton. It’s a cold wind blowing up the stairs of the old Burgh Hall, where the ceud mile failte for the residents is non-existent, and they have to be escorted to the useless public gallery, where people can’t see or hear the proceedings.
I’m told the council spent £52,000 on a new sound system, which still doesn’t work, and the council said it was working perfectly when they were challenged about it. Dear. dear …
In Clydebank, during one crisis – when is there not a crisis in West Dunbartonshire Council – the council locked the doors and sent the prospective audience home.
They should have been thanking them warmly for coming and taking a commendable civic interest in matters the council, in its wisdom, was spending £500,000 of our money on.
Attempting to publicise their affairs through a communications team that majors on silence. Communications and silence put together are an oxymoron.
So, how does the outcome of this Scottish Parliament election affect West Dunbartonshire Council?
We are living through the age of the influencer. The local government influencer here for the past five years has been Jackie Baillie, but she has had little or no influence on the shambolic council, which it has or had until they all fell out over who was getting the Provost’s job.
Nowadays, it is pass the parcel with the council administration.
If she has something to be proud of, that something is not there for all to see in West Dunbartonshire and Helensburgh, and Lomond or Argyll and Bute, where the local media reflects the anger of the electorate over issues such as the £millions wasted on the leisure centre at the Pier, which has been all but blown away.
The Helensburgh Advertiser has not been banned, at least not yet, by the highly paid A&B officials, but that seems to be coming down the West Highland Line fast from Lochgilphead.
Democracy is a fragile flower up there, too. It badly needs protecting from self-serving politicians, placemen and time servers.
As for those I believe will win the majority of votes in Dumbarton, which includes Cardross, Helensburgh, Rhu, and the Lochside, my choice for Dumbarton is Sophie Traynor of the SNP.
The Nationalists could be celebrating a hat-trick of wins with Marie McNair taking Clydebank and Milngavie, and former SNP government Minister Jenny Minto taking Argyll and Bute.
However, as I wrote here earlier, a week is a long time in politics, and there’s a great deal of that still to come.. Watch this space.