Jenny Dawe interview: You have to develop a thick skin to get by in politics

Published on Friday 16 May 2008 09:26

With a budget crisis, school closure controversy and now staff regrading looming, the city's leader reflects on her first year in office.

YOU wouldn't know it from looking at her. There's not a hint of it in her sensible grey skirt suit or white bobbed hair. Neither are there any clues down the back of the traditional Chesterfield sofa in her office.

But Jenny Dawe, it seems, is a woman of some passion and single-mindedness . . . isn't she?

After all, she abandoned her university studies to follow the man she loved to Africa, where they married and had four sons. After 14 years she fled back to Edinburgh – just her and her boys – and as a single mum struggled to keep life and soul together as well as complete her studies.

Then there was her beloved Liberal Party. Admittedly, it might not have the radicalism of far right or left policies, but she was so committed she pounded the streets delivering leaflets, even becoming an election agent at 17.

Now finally, after ten years as a councillor and at 62, she has risen to the heady heights of council leader of the city in which she was born and bred. It's some story – worthy of a chick lit author perhaps. But Dr Dawe is not the sort to play along with any romantic guff, nor paint herself as some kind of feminist crusader.

In typical Liberal Democrat fashion, it seems it's all been fine. "My life has just been full of strange choices," she smiles.

It's strange then that none of that drive is obvious when you meet her. For a party leader she seems lacking in arrogance and ambition. While her opponents would no doubt say she has both, in person she seems remarkably – well – "nice", and her constant smile is sincere.

She's certainly more girls' school headmistress than dynamic city leader – but perhaps that's how she has to be to deal with both an opposition whose noses are still very out of joint at losing power, and the street-smart Steve Cardownie, her SNP counterpart.

"We take Steve for what he is. We know what we're dealing with," she says, as if he's a naughty schoolboy. "As for Labour, well they're finding it tough, but they'll have to get used to it."

Her party's coalition with the SNP, though, hasn't been easy and her first year as council leader has been, to put it mildly, rather tempestuous.

First there was the announcement that 22 schools were to close. Then there was a volte-face on that, thanks to a "betrayal" by the Nationalists, who changed their mind about backing that unpopular plan. That was later followed by an outcry over the budget cuts which affected many community organisations.

There's also been the issue of the tram line, which businesses claim is hurting trade; the outcry over plans to demolish Meadowbank Stadium; and now on the horizon, tough negotiations with Unison over council staff pay regrading.

So how does she feel the year's gone? There's an almost imperceptible shrug: "It's been interesting – tempestuous, yes, sometimes. I knew I'd be busy, but I certainly didn't realise the amount of work involved."

She says the Lib Dems were well prepared for coalition talks as they knew they'd do well out of proportional representation.

"We spoke to all parties at length. A lot of people expected us to go into coalition with Labour, but we compared manifestos and there wasn't a lot of difference between ours and the SNP – apart from on trams," she says.

"The real turning point was that many of our new councillors had taken a hard anti-Labour stance in the election campaign, so it became difficult for us to go into coalition with the enemy."

Part of the initial trouble with the SNP was down to that group of councillors' inexperience, she says, but insists they've ironed out their differences. Still there was that "major glitch", as she describes it, over school closures. Did she not feel, as her education spokeswoman Marilyne MacLaren did, that they were betrayed?

"Well we sat here," she indicates the oval table in her office "with three of the SNP group and betrayal was a word that was used. We had quite a heated group meeting about whether we should remain in coalition with the SNP. But now we have a protocol in place to ensure that what happened over the schools rationalisation plans cannot happen again."

The problem of schools hasn't gone away though, and it's likely to raise its thorny head again sooner rather than later. "We've got to deal with it and make tough decisions," says Councillor Dawe. "These are decisions that should probably have been made a long time ago. It would be easy to keep putting them off, but we can't. We want to have the kind of schools that are best for the children of the city."

It's the same with the staff regrading process she says. "It should have been started back in 1999 when it became obvious there was a problem with equal pay for some of the less well-paid female staff. It will be a hard process to go through but we'll get there."

She makes it all sound so reasonable – even the tough choices made through the budget process.

"We were in a terrible financial situation and again we faced it head on and took tough choices," she says. "I also think there was a lot of politics being played with the budget.

"A lot of places thought they were going to lose money or be closed when they never were, and that scaremongering wasn't our fault."

She admits to having learned a lot of lessons in the past 12 months, and even admits the coalition's naivety was perhaps used by council officials who wanted to push their own agendas.

"We were very reliant on advice from officials, directors and heads of service," she says. "There was a very strong officer recommendation that we should move as quickly as possible on schools. I think, now, we would be more questioning perhaps about why it was recommendations were being made."

What she has found surprising is her new-found public profile. "Well I get some comments from the public when I'm on the bus or in the street, but mostly it's good humoured," she says.

"You have to develop a pretty thick skin in politics, but some comments do get to you, especially when they're personal."

No doubt she hopes she's saying the same after four years at the helm of the city. By then her office, which is rather bare of personal artifacts, may be more her own. But what about that other rather plusher office never far from the headlines – that of former Lord Provost Eric Milligan. Is she likely, as she can as leader, to evict him?

It seems this is one place her schoolmarm act doesn't work. "It was Labour politicians who first raised that with me," she says. "It's they who want him out, not me. I'm happy with my office, and George Grubb (Lord Provost) is happy with his. So it's really up to them."

Jenny maps out her vision for the future

WITH a year under her belt, what can the city expect next under Jenny Dawe's leadership?

"Economic development is very important to us, so we've appointed an economic development director," she says, "and we've got a new city development director with an economic development background.

"While the finance sector is very important to us, we can't put all our eggs in one basket. The city has to diversify, which is why with the Princes Street plan we're looking at a whole range of retail, hotels, cafes, restaurants – the service sector and tourism are also vital to the city.

"Housing is another major issue for us and we are keen to up the number of affordable homes being built."

On trams she believes that once the route is up and running the traders currently griping about loss of business will find their fortunes turned around. In the meantime she says: "We are seeing what we can do to help."

As for new schools being built, she adds: "We're obviously still waiting to hear back from Holyrood on whether Wave Three (of the PPP school renewal scheme] will go ahead, and with each day's delay the projects get more expensive."

FROM TOMBOY TO LEADING LIB DEM

JENNY DAWE grew up in Parkgrove – "my parents would insist it was Barnton" – and was never one to follow the crowd.

She was a tomboy as a child, more inclined to read Scouting for Boys than Girl's World, and as a teen she was out delivering political leaflets while her peers were going to the cinema.

"I joined the Liberal Party when I was still at Trinity Academy. I had written to all the parties about their views. The Liberal Party met my instinctive views about equality and fairness," she says.

After living in Africa, teaching and studying for a PhD in African history, she became a welfare rights officer with East Lothian Council, but politics came calling again.

In 1997 she stood for Donald Gorrie's Gyle seat after he resigned to focus on his work as an MP, and won.

She became group leader of the Lib Dems in 1999, lives in Marchmont, and has five grandchildren.