Margo MacDonald: Teamwork is vital to keep Games on track

Published on Wednesday 30 September 2009 10:05

ACCORDING to the headlines, Labour's Steven Purcell, the youngish, boyish looking leader of Glasgow City Council, was told by Alex Salmond to "start behaving like a grown-up". Since we weren't present at the meeting, Cllr Purcell's failure to deny that this exchange took place encourages us to believe that it did. So we must assume worse will follow if these two able men don't work together to promote partnership between Edinburgh and Glasgow.

It's bad news when a disagreement over policy between two political opponents turns personal . . . it's even worse if two men start name-calling when the reputation of our capital, biggest city and Scotland itself can be damaged abroad in the years leading up to the Commonwealth Games. There are party activists who'll support them right or wrong, as happened over the cancellation of the Glasgow Airport Rail Link (GARL) announced last week by Finance Minister John Swinney. Someone has to take the initiative and call off the attack dogs.

Presumably cabinet secretary Swinney dropped GARL because it was the least painful way to achieve one big saving that would keep alive other smaller, more urgently required projects. But Purcell's treatment left a lot to be desired. The Glasgow council leader was given only 11 minutes' notice by the Scottish Government before the announcement that kiboshed a project that had been promised in the city's pitch for the Commonwealth Games in 2014.

Leave aside whether the rail link from the airport to the city centre represents a real diminution of the quality of experience for most visitors to the Games, or how heavily used it would become after the crowds have gone, and try to imagine how you would feel if you had been one of the Glasgow team who promised the Commonwealth committee the GARL rail line as part of your city's bid?

To lose the link was bad enough, but to have been treated so casually was bound to have angered and embarrassed the Glasgow council leader. I wish it could be said that he rose above such shabby behaviour, but it wouldn't be true. He replied in kind by treating the Scottish Government with the same scant respect it had shown him, and accused First Minister Salmond of "betraying" Glasgow, of pointing a dagger at the city's heart, and, as the row escalated, of causing two of the 2014 venues to fall a year behind schedule. And, true to form, other Labour and SNP members have weighed into the fight.

Now political rows come and go, and more balanced people go about their business as usual. But sometimes the issue causing the row is too big to be ignored. Sometimes the row is manufactured because of the effect it might have on events that to the naked eye appear to be absolutely unconnected. I suspect the GARL row to be shot through with such political opportunism. The by-election in north-east Glasgow is probably not unconnected to the political fury about GARL. The project doesn't figure highly on the wish list of many Glaswegians.

But this perfidy, according to Labour, is merely an example of how the Holyrood SNP powers that be treat Scotland's largest city. If the claim is repeated often enough, it doesn't take a professor of politics to work out which party's by-election candidate will benefit. But the SNP is as keen as Labour to win the seat, which presumably explains why SNP deputy first minister Nicola Sturgeon shrugged off her Florence Nightingale persona and got her retaliation in first by chucking the accusation at Purcell of having deliberately provoked the row.

This must stop. Glasgow and Edinburgh must work together to benefit not only their own citizens, but everyone in Scotland. Edinburgh is, and will remain, Scotland's capital, with the recognition and responsibilities that go with the territory. Glasgow will have to get over it. There is still a faint echo in the Capital of when, not without justification, city councillors shared the feeling of being ill done to by the formulae that awards Glasgow a much higher per capita amount of money, when Edinburgh can point to the same levels of deprivation, although in smaller numbers.

Last week, the Scottish Government was insensitive in its treatment of Glasgow and stoked up resentment at both ends of the M8. If such bloody mindedness becomes common knowledge, what effect will that have on the business that might be generated, home and away, by the Games? And how easy will it be for individual athletes and their sports' governing bodies to obtain sponsorships?

Already there are signs that party political interests will elbow out sensible cross-party co-operation over the Commonwealth Games against a background of ever-scarcer money.

The dare and double-dare posturing of Scotland's two main parties is an unattractive, amateurish image to show the world . . . so let's not.