City needs Swinney to loosen the purse strings

THE comment from Jo Aylies from Leith in Monday's paper said it all: "The Government should be providing more money for housing. The council will never be able to invest properly in new houses, so the money will have to come from the Government."

Although I was as shocked as everyone else at that night's front page story about how there have been more than a thousand applications for a two-bedroom home in Drumbrae, admittedly one of the most popular districts in the city, I was glad it had come to light this week.

Tomorrow, Finance Minister John Swinney will come to the debating chamber and open the Scottish Government's piggy-bank. He'll share out the Barnett Formula money from Westminster amongst all Scotland's local councils. I also hope he'll have an extra bit of funding (Capital City Supplement) for Edinburgh.

Surely, after reading of the pressure on the Capital's ability to provide an adequate number of houses, the minister will see the urgency, and fairness in recognising the Capital's citizens are being asked to pay too high a price for the city's success in leading the campaign to put Scotland on the tourism and business maps?

By coincidence I visited the new city council offices at Waverley Court on Monday. Along with fellow MSPs David McLetchie and Ian McKee and, Mark Lazarowicz MP, I had the chance to speak frankly with council leader Jenny Dawe and her deputy, Steve Cardownie, as well as Ewan Aitken, the opposition leader, and senior council officials.

At previous meetings such as this, both the elected members and officials were loathe to blame Holyrood for the city's problems. During the past four years of the last parliament I found growing support for the idea of a Capital City Supplement. But there was something of a stiff upper lip attitude towards complaining about the extreme difficulty of coping with a greater need for affordable family homes, a population growing faster than predicted, a need for more to be spent on services because of the huge expansion in the numbers of people coming into the city for business reasons, and the loss of 90 per cent - to other parts of Scotland- of the business rates thus generated.

But in the very near future, Edinburgh will be unable to meet its legal obligation to house people classified as having "priority need" under homelessness laws. Although the number of applications for the Drumbrae home was extraordinary, the average number of people bidding for a house or flat is 130, and rising.

So even if councillors are still reluctant to name-call the Government, on Monday morning, the tension and worry about the city's housing supply was all-pervasive. Jenny Dawe is hopeful that councillors demonstrating their willingness to make as many savings (in education, social work and voluntary organisation contracts) as possible will persuade Chancellor Alastair Darling to allow Edinburgh to join Glasgow, and the other authorities that voted to transfer their council tenancies to housing associations, to compete on a level playing field.

It was always unfair that council tenants like Edinburgh's should be penalised by not having their historic housing debt cancelled, or even restructured, to allow them to build new houses to fill the shortage created by the Right to Buy.

The SNP Government deserves two, no, one and a half claps for saying that councils do not need to comply wholeheartedly with the Right to Buy on any newly-built homes . . . but then Alex's Army spoils the chance for the Edinburgh City Council to play catch-up by failing to ensure the Capital has enough money to build for need, not greed.

However, when he puts his purse on the table tomorrow, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance (and everything else that isn't nailed down) knows that behind him, in the cheap seats, I won't take anything less than a financial settlement for the Capital that recognises the extra burden placed on the city and its citizens since the Scottish Parliament was established.

Film brings back memories of schoolgirl error

MEMORY Lane was pretty crowded this week with Led Zeppelin, Dolly Parton and the remake of the St Trinian's comedy.

I was never a big fan of the ultimate rockers . . . my preference being for Country music men like Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Roy Orbison, and the real women rednecks like Dolly. But my most blush-making nostalgia was the memory of being a real, live St Trinian's gel, even if it was for only one day.

The distributors of the George Cole/Joyce Grenfell/Alastair Sim film hit on a really cheapskate, but effective promotional gimmick for the film: the original St Trinian's gymslips, big knickers, holey tights, bashed hats and smashed-up hockey sticks were supplied, with the film, to cinema managers. They roped in girls to wear the stuff, and to mount mock attacks on bus queues and other venues where people could be handed flyers.

All good, clean fun . . . or it would have been if the beat-up uniforms had been washed between outings.

Time to trade up to better education

AT long last someone in the Scottish Government's education department is joining up the dots in the big picture of our education system. It may have taken the OECD research into global attainment levels to jolt our politicians and educationalists into admitting what most of us have known for some time, but don't let's stand on our dignity on this.

A university education is essential for some professions and jobs, many of them very important to the well-being and wealth of all Scots . . . but most of them no more important to a functioning society than trades. So teach "tecky" subjects at school, and give FE colleges the freedom to recruit the future tradesmen and women.