Leader comment: Lord Provost gets a car fit for a queen

A Rolls-Royce Ghost is a car fit for a queen or a 'showstopper', as Glasgow's Lord Provost Eva Bolander declared when she revealed an anonymous donor had gifted one for her use.

The 'politically awake' Lord Provost of Glasgow, Eva Bolander, with the city's new Rolls-Royce

However is it fit for the figurehead of the city to accept such a present? The question over the identity of the donor will remain until it is answered.

And the city council has also been forced to make significant cuts to services in recent years, while 45 per cent of children in the city centre live in poverty.

A visit from the Lord Provost in such a grand car does little to suggest the people and their political leaders are all in it together. Labour MP Paul Sweeney described the contrast between a chaffeur-driven Rolls-Royce for the Lord Provost and cuts for ordinary people as “Dickensian”.

Glasgow City Council has also made much of its low-emission zone – Scotland’s first – designed to reduce air pollution and cut carbon emissions.

Environmentalists, who have already raised concerns the scheme will have little impact, may be forgiven for looking askance at the Lord Provost’s new gas-guzzler.