Greens in Edinburgh have criticised the Merchant Company of Edinburgh over an apparent snub in its hosting of an election meeting in the capital last night (23 February). In the run up to the council elections on 3 May, many organisations are organising so-called “hustings” events with all five parties which have councillors in Edinburgh. However, the Merchant Company, which represents business interests, restricted its invitations to only 4 of the 5 parties in its panel discussion with local party leaders.
Convenor of the Green Group of Councillors, Steve Burgess said
“This seems an extraordinary oversight on the part of the Merchant Company. The Lothian area has continuously returned a Green MSP since 1999 and Greens have had 3 councillors in the city for five years now. As councillors, we have engaged with a full range of issues of interest to businesses, from local shops to the role of supermarket giants and multi-national chains. I am astonished that we were declined the opportunity to put our views and for members to hear them.”
The Edinburgh branch of the 
Maybe if your 3rd councillor had given up her council seat when the financially better MSP seat was taken then the Green Party would be taken more seriously and not power grabbers. The fact that she does not take a council salary is not good enough.
She has denied her council constituents of a full time councillor and that is dreadful – will not vote green again.
Well, Alison Johnstone was elected to serve a five year term as a councillor and before she was elected as an MSP she made clear that she would see out that commitment before she stands down as councillor this May. She also does not draw her councillor salary even while she continues to do council duties
The other thing I made to add before prematurely hitting “submit” is that many councillors have other jobs, sometimes demanding ones – teachers, business people and so on – and are not required or expected to give up those positions on being elected as a councillor. Leaving aside retired people I suspect that full-time councillors are the exception rather than the rule.
Councillors have never been regarded as full-time – their remuneration is set at £15,000, about two thirds of the average wage. Many if not most councillors have a full-time job and ALSO take their council salary (which Alison Johnstone doesn’t).
Also if Cllr Johnstone had stood down it would have caused a first-past-the-post by-election where the seat was won by the strongest party in Meadows and Morningside. At the last election that was the Conservatives. Would a second Conservative councillor in the ward (probably with a full-time job and taking the council pay) really be a good outcome?!
Instead, as an MSP, Alison has undoubtedly been able to help her ward constituents even more than before.
Thank you very much for your replies. I just have a couple of points:
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“Alison Johnstone was elected to serve a five year term as a councillor and before she was elected as an MSP she made clear that she would see out that commitment before she stands down as councillor this May.”
I refer you to http://www.electionleaflets.org/leaflets/6444/ which has Alison Johnstone’s leaflet for said election. Nowhere in that leaflet does she make clear that she would be a part-time councillor nor indeed part-time MSP for her constituents. I admit there may be another leaflet that does “make clear” but it is not a matter of public record, therefore I must, with all due respect, disagree with your comment.
“I suspect that full-time councillors are the exception rather than the rule.”
I am afraid you’re suspicions do not make this a fact. In fact putting this type of non-factual information in your reply screams of politician-double-speak-desperate.
“She also does not draw her councillor salary even while she continues to do council duties”
I had acknowledged this point in my reply. I didn’t of course acknowledge that she now is getting almost four times the council salary (plus exes) for doing those very same duties. It would have held more weight if she had given up the MSP salary for the year where she continued to be a councillor. Would have just been the right thing to do, IMHO.
“their remuneration is set at £15,000, about two thirds of the average wage”
But of course Councillor/MSP Johnstone is now getting about twice the average wage for those same duties.
“Also if Cllr Johnstone had stood down it would have caused a first-past-the-post by-election where the seat was won by the strongest party in Meadows and Morningside. At the last election that was the Conservatives. Would a second Conservative councillor in the ward”
Ah, so Cllr Johnstone keeping her council seat was merely to go against the democratic will of the constituency and stop a Tory getting in. Now the truth comes out.
“(probably with a full-time job and taking the council pay)”
As long as that is the councillor who was chosen in the democratic process, by the constituents who knew all the facts, and the full-time job did not entail taking public money, I don’t see that as being a problem at all. To go into this further would mean getting into a philisophical argument about what type of democracy is available in this country – too deep for this site.
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Personally, I beleive that as soon as Ms. Johnstone had decided to stand for parliament then the first think she should have done was inform her constituents by resigning her council seat and not using time, when she could have been pursuing council business on behalf of her contituents, on campaigning for a better, higher paying job at the expense of those very same constituents.
What about the poor carers in the city working 30 hours per week for £55.20 carers allowance whilst at the same time saving the United Kingdom £78 billion? – twice the amount spent on Defence in the last year.
Good people know in their hearts what is the right thing to do – most, if not all, politicians just don’t – its all about self preservation and power, IMHO. :-)
Dear John,
Sorry to hear you won’t be voting Green again.
I think you’re probably right about doing two jobs at once, and yes that goes into a much bigger area about democracy generally, but as far as I can see, other parties did exactly the same. (Okay, that’s maybe not good enough either!)
Don’t forget too that this shouldn’t have been an issue as local authority elections were supposed to happen last year. Ministers decided we would be too confused to deal with two questions at the same time (they say the opposite over independence of course) so postponed these forthcoming elections.
Don’t know too much about Edinburgh, but over here in Renfrewshire we have MSPs from Labour and the SNP still supposedly doing their council jobs. We have Lib-Dems who have jumped ship to the SNP in an effort to save themselves and even a Tory who now represents Labour. This is no surprise to anyone who’s watched the Tories and Labour cosying up against the biggest party in Brighton and Hove, talking about subverting democratic decisions.
I agree with your comments on carers. So does every Green I know. Which party with any hope of being elected in May do you trust most to do something about it?
All the best,
Graham Batin
I agree with everything you have said Graham. I will be voting for any independent on the ballot paper or “None of the Above”.
The ‘others are doing it’ is not an argument, I voted greens because the others were doing it. I would have had a lot more respect, maybe even helped campaigning if she had said I will stay a councillor and will not draw MSP salary until I can become a full-time MSP for my constituents.
In additional response to John’s points, one thing that hasn’t been mentioned yet is the cost of a by-election (which would be far more than a councillor’s allowance even if it had been claimed).
This is an issue right across the country – where councillors resign or step down close to the end of their terms and a by-election is called opposition parties are quick to jump on the bandwagon about the waste of taxpayers’ money involved. So damned if you do and damned if you don’t?
I’d also point out that legislation actually prevents there from being a by-election for a council vacancy in the 6 months preceeding the date of the seat next being contested partly at least in order to prevent such a waste of money. For all parties, something like 22 councillors were elected as MSPs last May – not one has stood down from these posts prior to this May. If any had, the by-elections in all likelihood would not have been held until September/October (see the Liberton/Gilmerton by-election after Ian Murray was elected as MP), so you would be talking about spending a large amount of money just a month or two before legislation would forbid such a by-election being held – is that really providing value for the tax-payer.
Instead, those MSPs have endeavoured to continue in both jobs and represent those who elected them. Is this ideal? Probably not. But then the question is how good a job they have done in those jobs. Other than the principle about someone having two jobs (although as has been mentioned, being a councillor has never been considered a job as such in this country), why specifically do you feel that the voters of Meadows/Morningside have been under-represented on the council since May?