Leader: Political pygmies have shamed the capital with this new folly

onceived as a great monument to those who fell in the Napoleonic Wars, “Edinburgh’s Disgrace” stands, half-finished, on Calton Hill. Now another grand project conceived as a symbol of the city’s sense of itself as an vibrant, modern, European capital is set to be built but left unfinished. The Edinburgh trams scheme is the city’s 21st century disgrace. No sooner had the vote been taken to build the tram only to Haymarket – and reject the previously agreed option of taking it to St Andrew Square – then the blame game began, with all four political parties represented on the council seeking to avoid responsibility for a decision which dispassionate observers agree was the worst possible outcome for the capital and for Scotland.

The facts are these. Although building the tram to St Andrew Square would involve additional cost of some £15 million a year over and above the £545m original cost of the project, taking the total expenditure over the next 15 years to some £1 billion, there was a chance that in shipping passengers from the airport to the city centre it would be used by enough people to make money or break even. There would, it is true, have been further disruption to traffic around Shandwick Place as streets were dug up for utility re-routing and the badly laid tracks on Princes Street would have to be repaired (though at the contractors expense), but completing the network at least to the city centre at least gave it a fighting chance of success.

Stopping at Haymarket is the worst of all possible worlds, worse even than cancelling the project altogether, as the route from there to the airport does not go through areas of high population density and tourists coming to Edinburgh will be baffled when they board a tram only to find the terminus is more than a mile from the city centre itself. Probably the only people who will be celebrating this decision will be the owners of Ryries bar and the Omar Khayyam restaurant in Haymarket, who will no doubt do a roaring trade. The rest of the city, the rest of the country, will be appalled, baffled and angry at the way our politicians have handled this.

The City Chambers where once great politicians such as Robin Cook and Malcolm Rifkind crossed political swords, has become a place for political pygmies with none of the parties coming out of this well. In putting forward the compromise motion of halting the project at Haymarket, Labour and its leader Andrew Burns obviously thought they could outflank the Liberal Democrat/SNP coalition which was divided on the issue. Their argument that the Haymarket option builds confidence in trams was laughable given it is predicted to lose money. Mr Burns, the man who tried to bring in congestion charging to pay for trams when Labour was in power and failed, has mishandled this badly and lost any remaining credibility he may have had.

In supporting Labour and winning the vote, the Tories showed the worst kind of political opportunism, refusing to take a brave decision of either voting to scrap the project or for the Princes Street option which gave it some hope of success in the long term. Along with Labour, the Tories have shown themselves to be political fearties, both calculating and cowardly. The Liberal Democrats and their leader Jenny Dawe at least stuck to their guns and should be given some credit for that. However, Ms Dawe has not provided either strong or inspiring leadership throughout this crisis and her party, damaged already by the UK coalition with the Tories, is likely to pay the price at next May’s council elections.

Even the SNP, which won seats and power on the back of its opposition to trams, lost the courage of its convictions and abstained instead of voting to scrap the scheme. In so doing it sacrificed any claims it may have had to the moral high ground, a piece of political chicanery for which their leader Steve Cardownie, who was moving towards a pragmatic acceptance of the trams, must take responsibility.

There is only one conclusion to be drawn from all of this: Edinburgh has been shamed by this shambles. A city which wanted to join Dublin, Bordeaux, Manchester and many others in having a modern, environmentally-friendly transport system, has become a laughing stock, the place which stand-up comedians are guaranteed an easy laugh. It does not seem likely but even now, at the 59th minute of the eleventh hour, there must surely be time for the councillors to recognise their mistake, think again and take the admittedly difficult but realistic decision to build the trams at least as far as Princes Street.