Of Trams and Bams
Edinburgh City Council is apparently planning to borrow the money needed - to fund the cost of its wildly out of control trams project - which could hit £830 according to the latest estimates.
Now this will be 50% more than the original cost - estimated at £545 million - and it will deliver only a much shorter route than was originally envisaged.
The money will run out at St Andrews Square apparently - not Newhaven via Leith Walk - and the extra borrowing costs will run to hundreds of millions of pounds - which Edinburgh taxpayers will be paying off for many years.
In the Scottish Parliament the Labour party and Lib Dems - ganged up and forced the Scottish government to stump up £500 million to fund this pet project - which makes the whole country look completely ridiculous.
All I would observe is that these are some of the same politicians - and political parties - in Edinburgh who - back in 2005 - said there was no money for the council to meet its obligations on equal pay.
The reality is that lots of council employees in Edinburgh still have outstanding equal pay claims - which the council is fighting tooth and nail through the courts.
Yet hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted - on what amounts to a political vanity project - courtesy of Labour and the Lib Dems.
The world's gone mad right enough - the bams are in charge of the trams.
Now this will be 50% more than the original cost - estimated at £545 million - and it will deliver only a much shorter route than was originally envisaged.
The money will run out at St Andrews Square apparently - not Newhaven via Leith Walk - and the extra borrowing costs will run to hundreds of millions of pounds - which Edinburgh taxpayers will be paying off for many years.
In the Scottish Parliament the Labour party and Lib Dems - ganged up and forced the Scottish government to stump up £500 million to fund this pet project - which makes the whole country look completely ridiculous.
All I would observe is that these are some of the same politicians - and political parties - in Edinburgh who - back in 2005 - said there was no money for the council to meet its obligations on equal pay.
The reality is that lots of council employees in Edinburgh still have outstanding equal pay claims - which the council is fighting tooth and nail through the courts.
Yet hundreds of millions of pounds have been wasted - on what amounts to a political vanity project - courtesy of Labour and the Lib Dems.
The world's gone mad right enough - the bams are in charge of the trams.
