Lesley Riddoch: Keep right on to the end of the road

Public morale has already suffered crippling blows. First MSPs proved they couldn't organise a proverbial in the brewery at Holyrood – not the city's fault of course, but some mud stuck to the location.

Then millions were wasted on a congestion charging referendum – road-pricing wasn't a bad idea, but no turkey ever voted for Christmas. A fact recognised by Red Ken when he astutely decided his own election constituted a mandate for change in London. Like him or loathe him, that's leadership.

There have been very few silver linings in these dark clouds over the Capital's organisational capacity. The millions spent on Holyrood did finally produce a usable building and the millions spent on congestion charging mercifully spared us a legacy of pointless "street furniture."

There was nothing tangible at all to remind taxpayers of the waste and chronic miscalculation of voter mood. And – of course – the bills for all these mistakes landed in a time of plenty.

Right now, no such silver linings are visible in the thick cloud that swirls over Edinburgh's trams.

The unfinished terminal at Gogar, the cones, narrowed lanes and roadworks are visible. The cycle-unfriendly cobbles in Princes Street are visible. The work to relay them properly (cracks have appeared) will be highly visible. And the thin platforms dotted along the length of Leith Walk are maddeningly visible. So too the empty shop windows of businesses that couldn't survive years of disruption.

If the tram stops at St Andrew Square, Leith businesses will have nothing to show for the lost trade, chaos, mud and road closures.

In these recessionary days, pain without gain may soon be the order of the day. That doesn't make the Leith situation any more acceptable.

Since the trams project began, with its Holyrood-dwarfing price-tag, thousands of "rock solid" financial jobs in Edinburgh have been lost.

Reputations have been lost. Certainty has been lost. And above all, we have lost trust in one another and in our own capacities. Trust is the bedrock of society. Steadily chiselled away by Margaret Thatcher, it is now being carted off by the barrowload.

Those pointless tram fittings on Leith Walk will become enduring testimonies to political folly and organisational incompetence.

Enduring reminders of civic failure. Enduring sources of profoundly negative feelings. For a nation facing surgery, the trams debacle is like a haemorrhage of the life force – right at its beating heart.

But John Swinney is right. The show must go on and the trams must go to Leith as planned.

City Development Director Dave Anderson is also right. There must be a public inquiry to rebuild faith between the people of Edinburgh and their council. And more.

Edinburgh City Council must come clean – fast. There can be no more secrecy regarding the failings of organisations and individuals in this project. It is, if you like, a George Reid moment.

I'm not saying the former Presiding Officer single-handedly saved the country's bacon when he was drafted in to take the Parliament building project by the scruff of the neck. But his appointment showed parliamentarians finally realised they had lost the faith of the public – and restoring faith demanded a recognisable figurehead, a trusted "honest broker," someone outside, not inside, the machine.

Currently the leaders of Edinburgh City Council seem to think they can stumble on. Last week's progress report confirmed trams would stop short of Leith (for an indeterminate period) but the ten redundant trams would have to be paid for anyway. A more succinct definition of the truly ridiculous would be hard to find.

And what did councillors decide to do in the face of this meltdown? Wait a few months for a "Plan B" report and then keep its findings secret.

This is unacceptable.

John Swinney and Dave Anderson have got it right, but neither are elected leaders of Edinburgh Council. They have sensed a need for urgency and leadership – City Fathers and Mothers have not.

It is time for Jenny Dawe, Steve Cardownie to wake up, take joint control and responsibility for the situation and explain to Edinburgh what the hell has been going on…or resign.

In all probability their parties will take a hammering at the next polls anyway. They have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Unlike the people round the San Jose mine in Chile, Edinburghers now expect nothing but the worst. It may be a ridiculous comparison given that only livelihoods are at stake in Edinburgh – not lives. But nihilism and hopelessness are corrosive wherever they occur – belief is always catching.

Scotland is waiting to hear whether a quarter or a fifth of our public spending must go in the Chancellor's long awaited spending review. It's vital Scots believe that "glorious failure" is no more inevitable in the field of public works than it is on the field of play.

Like John Swinney, I was not a supporter of Edinburgh trams at the start.

Lothian Buses is publicly owned and that status has helped create almost classless acceptance of bus travel in Edinburgh.

Tourists seem perfectly happy with Lothian's Airlink 100 service from the airport to Waverley. So in 1999, I had plenty reservations about trams and ideas about how 500 million could be better spent. But that was then.

Now, with more than half the cash and the self-esteem of the Scottish capital at stake, the tram project must be completed, all the way to Leith.

The smart money is on Bilfinger Berger being off the job by Christmas.

The kitty can then be accurately sized, remaining work phased and the city's financial and transport specialists tasked to devise a workable land uplift capture scheme they are likely to experience once public transport is on their doorsteps.

If the city's south suburban line was reopened – for a relatively modest 30 million – more of the 10-20 per cent improvement in land values which accompanies public transport could be captured, stalled developments in the North could restart and there would be a dramatic improvement in disruption-free city-wide mobility.

A solution to the trams impasse is out there – even now. And a solution is all the people of Edinburgh will accept.