SNP leaflet - 'Edinburgh is being used as a cash cow'

Vote SNP to give Glasgow a better deal than Edinburgh was certainly not a message that the Nationalists would have wanted even whispered in the Capital.

It was certainly naive of Glasgow Shettleston candidate John Mason, and anyone who might have approved his election leaflet, to boast about the 40 per cent gap in the public funding given to the two cities.

Of course he won't be the last politician to make a gaffe in this campaign - and many of them can be laughed off and forgotten.

What is unfortunate for the SNP is that this miscalculation taps into a serious issue of deep-seated concern in the Capital.

And one that it must be pointed out has yet to be properly addressed by any of the main political parties.

That is the fears about the way the Capital increasingly seems to be used as a cash cow by successive governments to subsidise the rest of the nation.

No-one expects every penny of tax raised in Edinburgh to stay within the city, far from it. We recognise the crucial role that the Capital plays in driving the economy of the country as a whole.

But it is the extent to which that has been happening, with around 100 million a year taken from the city in business rates alone. The problem has been compounded recently by rates bills soaring in the city as a result of a revaluation exercise and the receipts from the sell-off of NHS Lothian property being directed out of the Capital.

It is not just Edinburgh, but the country as a whole, that will suffer if our businesses and public services are not dealt a fair hand.

Bag it and bin it

it is incredible to think that thousands of city homes now have ten bins or bags in which to dispose of their waste.

That's an awful lot of space in anyone's house or garden to devote to recycling.

But the bottom line is that those who do not want to recycle that much don't need to use them. And the evidence suggests that making them available to those who want to go green gets results in terms of cutting down on the two-thirds of our household waste that currently goes straight to landfill.

The crucial thing is that the council remembers that better facilities and incentives are the key to increasing recycling, and not fines.