A Thought for Christmas

I believe in the idea that Jesus was the child of God, a wee vunerable wean coming to live a life that spoke of Gods undefeatable love, beginning his existance as a homeless asylum seeker and ending it on a criminals cross, betrayed by his closest friends, his mothers tears at his feet and with the powerful, smug in their sense of self preservation. Even if you think those words are meaningless, think of this. Imagine a world where we listened to those who were often unheard and learnt from their experience, loved those we struggled to love and forgave those who hurt us rather than hurtiing them back. That seems impossible, idealistic, naive even. But I would rather believe that such things were possible and achieveable than to give up on humanity and say that we are all beyond such loving living. Because if I give up and say we will never learn to lift up the poor, love our enemy and serve our friends I don’t just give up on others, I give up on myself and thats no way to live. So whatever you believe about the “wean in the manger”, just another baby or the son of God, I hope that you have a peaceful Christmas, a prosperous New Year and that you choose not to give up, on others and yourself. Go well.

Affordable Social Housing

I was underwhelmed by David McLetchie's (Tory MSP) criticisms of our housing policy. This from a man who supported council house sales, which is one of the very reasons we have a huge problem in providing both adequate numbers of houses at affordable prices and manage the estates they are in. I do not critisise those who bought their homes in any way. In many cases they were made an offer that they could not refuse. But there were huge consequences of that policy, especially as the cash raised went only to pay off debt and not new homes. I also don’t want to go back to the kind of centralised control of council housing stock that said you can have any colour of front door as long as its black. But thanks to the right to buy, from which there is no going back, we have lost more than half our housing stock and the ability to work with local people to manage the whole area and stock together. I find his conversion to the need for affordable social housing a overwhelmingly shallow experience.

Relocation of Creative Scotland

I was annoyed to once again be told that there are further proposals to remove Civil Service jobs from the Capital just on the basis of numbers. In particular Creative Scotland, the new Scottish Arts body. It is a kind of ideological madness that says its more important to remove numbers of jobs rather than ask the more fundamental questions about what a capital needs. In this case, its a capital city which is a world leader in culture and the arts, so Nicol Stephen and George Lyon the Lib Dem ministers in charge of these relocations, want to move the driving force of the arts in Scotland out of Edinburgh. This anti-Edinburgh bias has to stop. On the one hand they want us to defend rural post offices and on the other they want to undermine our ability to be the Capital city. It's not good for the nation or it's capital.

Visit of Mr John Owino and his wife, District Director of Education in Meru South district in Kenya

It was a great joy this week to welcome Mr John Owino and his wife, District Director of Education in Meru South district in Kenya to Edinburgh. I had met John when I went out to Kenya in June with the Director of Children and Families Roy Jobson, and a group from Drummond High School.We were greatly moved by our experiences there. Roy and I visited 11 schools in 4 days as well as several meetings with officials. We witnessed huge determination by both staff and pupils to take every chance they could to make the best of the educational opportunities they had but with up to 50 pupils per class, few resources and the classes with earth floors and and no windows, it was tough going for them. We heard stories of pupils walking several miles to be at school. School dinners were made from what the school could grow in the fields and if the school wants to grow, the parents physically built the classrooms themselves. Johns visit is the next stage of the setting up of a trust to work in partnership with Meru South authority. We have much to learn and much to give which will bring benefit to everyone. As one of the Drummond pupils put it, this trip has changed my life.

May the Peace of Christmas be with You

I will be sending out my “official” Christmas card this week. Its not a picture of myself and my wife on the steps of the City Chambers with pictures of my venerable predecessor behind us. Its a picture of the City Nativity Scene which we blessed again this year. It sits at the bottom of the Mound, just on Princes Street, Edinburgh's main shopping centre, an appropriate reminder of the Christmas story in the heart of the marketplace. The idea that I, or anyone else would send a Christmas card that doesn’t mention faith for fear of offence is bonkers. Every year the first Christmas card I get is from the Pakistan Society, a Muslim organisation, followed closely by good wishes from many other of the faith communities. If they can recognise my faith communities celebrations and I theirs, as I do, why can't those who don't hold to any faith be equally respectful? I question whether those who claim that others “might be offended” have asked these mysterious others. I think that it is they themselves who choose to take offence. For me that is their choice not my doing. I don’t take offence at their lack of belief in a divinity and I refuse to hide my own faith for such spurious reasons. To them and to everyone else I would say simply, as I have in my card, “may the peace of Christmas be with you” .

Blessing Civil Partnerships

I am very disappointed that 36 Presbyteries of the Church of Scotland have agreed with the motion sent to them by the General Assembly (the Church sovereign body) which would have allowed ministers to bless civil (ie same sex) partnerships without fear of prosecution. Only 6 voted in favour. I have conducted two services for gay couples both of which were moving celebrations of love, fidelity and commitment. For me this is not an debate about sexual preference but an issue of justice for one of the most excluded communities in society. I am absolutely clear that should the General Assembly ban ministers from blessing civil partnerships, if asked, I will ignore the ban. I fought to get back into the Church structures after I was excluded when I left the parish to go full time on the City council and I finally made it back in September of this year. Now I am wondering why I bothered!

Computerised Telephone Options

I spent a fruitless afternoon trying to contact a major bank about a mistake in my account. I covered several continents in my calls and found myself negotiating endless computerised options en route. I feel like an old luddite saying this but why can’t I just ring up and talk to a person when I ring up who actually has some grasp of my account or at least the type of account I am using. This system may be efficient for the accountants but its seriously inefficient for us poor account holders.

Manifesto for May

I spent much of Saturday morning with colleagues discussing our manifesto for May. The themes that are to be coming to the fore are transport (hence our support for issues like Trams and the Rail Link to the airport), affordable housing (we need 12000 new, affordable houses in the next ten years), the environment and the need to keep the City economy as buoyant as we have done in the last 10 years and more. We can and will make a series of pledges on these and other issues but the real challenge is how this document forms to basis for any coalition talks we enter. This is new territory and all party’s, not just ours, need to be clear on their approach. My view is that we don’t go into any talks (and we haven’t as yet talked with any of the other parties) assuming we need to reach agreement on every issue. I would rather work with a group agreeing on 70 or 80% of a programme and then put the rest up for debate to the Council meeting. Otherwise we end up with a series of lowest common denominator compromises that people feel they didn’t vote for or agreeing to things they don’t like in order to stay in power.

Young Edinburgh Awards

I was invited to present an award at the annual Young Edinburgh Awards on Monday. This is our celebration of the outstanding achievements of young people engaged in the ordinary things of life. They allow us to say positive things about young people in a media that is often so anti our teenage generations.There were 1600 nominations for about a dozen awards and all those shortlisted were an inspiration. Yet still we allow our media to portray young people as hoodie hooligans because of the actions of a stupid or damaged minority. Why we accept this abuse of our younger generation is a question I have yet to answer.I think our media (and I don’t just mean newspapers, TV in particular shows negative images in an uncritical fashion) need to take a long hard look at themselves. They are perpetuating a mythology about young people that they are apathetic, aggressive, abusing and anti-authoritarian which is simply not the case in the vast majority of cases. It would be a bit like me saying all newspapers have a reading age of 8 years old because I had picked up one tabloid.But we too are culpable because we buy, watch, listen and repeat the myths. And our young people suffer as a consequence.

Volunteering

I helped launch Edinburgh volunteering strategy on Wednesday. Sounds tedious but actually it was inspiring. Some of the stories of how being a volunteer had changed peoples lives and the lives of those they had volunteered to help were wonderful. Volunteering in al its forms is not just a way of delivering services on the cheap. It's how we weave the threads of our individual lives into the tapestry we call community. Its like the old lady who told me the lunch club " gave her a reason for getting up in the morning". Its not the provision of food that made the difference. That was simply a means to an end. It was the relationships built, the sense that she mattered, the understanding that she belonged that fed her soul as well as the filling of her stomach. Volunteers can change lives in ways that simply service providers don’t have the opportunity to do. And they often can do a better job because they are volunteers than the "professional" can. As I pointed out in my speech, Noah’s ark was built by volunteers, the Titanic by professionals....

Trident

I am deeply distressed and disappointed about the direction of debate in my Party over Trident. I cannot see any moral, ethical or legal argument why we would want to spend billions of pounds on a weapon of mass destruction which not only do we not want to use in anger, but we then use to bring about a type of peace which is actually merely an absence of war, which is no peace at all. Our possession of said weapons have not helped us one iota in the present wars in which we are entangled. I do not believe that we would lose our place on the national stage if we removed Trident. On the contrary, we would enter the world stage with a new integrity where we reached out in trust not in threat. And perhaps more importantly, we would be seen to be once again forging our own path and not limping along in Americas wake.

Kenny MacAskill's outburst on trams

I was astionished to read SNP MSP Kenny MacAskill's outburst on trams recently. This is quite a conversion. Here’s what he wrote only a few years ago.
"Instead let us recognise that at the start of C21 the route ahead for the City of Edinburgh is a light rail network that adds to both existing and reopened lines and that compliments and dovetails with other current and future modes of travel........
........The vision for Edinburgh has to be to aspire to be a truly Capital City. That means to have the public transport networks taken for granted in other European Capitals such as Copenhagen and Helsinki. Even Dublin is now recognising that and is preparing to take its city forward into C21".
He adds in conclusion that
"Edinburgh is now a Capital City it must not only think as such but act in a manner befitting that title. Now is the time to abandon CERT and go for a light rail network."
He claims its not trams, its the scheme that's the problem. Nonsense! this is all about short term political gain. But what an insult to the Capital city. Instead of £1 billion investment in Scotland's capital city which would bring benefit for the whole nation, MacAskill would give Edinburgh £4m to run a few more buses. How is this promoting the nation and its Capital as he purports to do? I think he should hang his head in shame.

a common sense of well-being as a community

I was delighted to play host to the Interfaith Association recently. Coming at a time when the debate about religions at war with each other is intensifying, it was lovely to be round a table with representatives from Islam, Buhuddism, Bai’hi, Sikhs, Hindu, several Christian denomonations and others.We explored common ground, in particular the idea of a common sense of well-being as a community. Would it be possible to have an indicator of the well-being of the city, how contented we felt as citizens together. We have indicators for many other things but this seemed a new thought. It's more than the MORI poll “satisfaction” indicator as that is about satisfaction with services. This was something a little deeper, a collective sense of contentment, (or anger or someting in between) that is more to do with how we feel in ourseves as opposed to how we feel just about the services we use. It was the membership of the association that raised this and I think its worth exploring.

Blessing of the Nativity Scene

So having had to “cancel hogmany” a few years ago, we found ourselves “cancelling Christmas” on Sunday, or at least the blessing of the Nativity Scene which sits at the bottom of the Mound in Edinburgh’s historic city centre. The wind and rain might have made for an authentic nativity experience but there was areal danger of some-one getting hurt. We managed to hold an indoor version up in the city chamber. It was a bit chaotic but well worth it, especially with St Peters Choir, backed by the Exile Choir, who were all ourstanding. I really like the Nativity Scene. Gifted by Sir Tom Farmer, it sits at the heart of the marketplace, a reminder that Christmas is a story about hope and forgiveness not consumption and wealth. It also is a clear statement that far from banning religous symbols, they can add to our self understanding. By that I mean symbols of all religions, not simply those from my own faith community. No matter what each person believes, symbols of all faiths allow us to reflect on our own belief decisions, even if that is to believe in nothing. Banning symbols of faith is asking us to stop thinking about what is truely significant and meaningful about life and the living of life. Banning religious symbols takes away from all our living, not just those of faith.