West's paranoia is driving me off rails

THERE are few things more likely to make my blood pressure rise than a chippy Glaswegian. I recently received an e-mail from one, all upset about how I had the cheek to vote against the proposal for a Glasgow Airport rail link (this time the vote was only 110-1).

Apparently, such people think we in Edinburgh are getting all the benefits of devolution and there's a mass conspiracy against the once great city that is now, sadly, a shadow of its former self.

This paranoia is all rubbish of course. Although I was born and bred in Scotland's beautiful capital, I don't represent an Edinburgh seat. When it comes to taxpayers' money being invested in areas such as Fife or Perthshire that I do cover I take as critical an eye as I would for any spending in Glasgow - or Edinburgh. Investment must make practical sense and offer value for money on its own merits and in comparison to any alternatives.

The proposals for this particular railway scheme suggest it will become an expensive white elephant requiring to be bailed out annually by hard-pressed taxpayers already having to stump up for the uneconomic Borders railway and faced with the cost of a new Forth road bridge.

Consider these facts - provided by this railway's promoter and not in dispute.

Practically a quarter (24 per cent) of Glasgow Airport passengers arrive or depart at a time when the airport trains will not be running or of any use to them. Only 15 per cent of the remaining air travellers come from, or are bound for, Glasgow and Inverclyde areas where there are stations serving the airport directly.

All other journeys will involve getting off one train to catch another, humping your luggage from one platform to another, often up and down stairs - and for nearly half of the passengers they need to traipse between Glasgow's Queen Street and Central stations. This is because, and it may surprise readers of the Evening News to know this, some 40 per cent of Glasgow Airport's passengers come from the Highlands, Grampian, Tayside, Perth, Stirling, Falkirk, Edinburgh, Lothian and the Borders.

Now let's put this Glasgow pipe dream into context. The parliament is at the same time considering another rail link proposal, this time for Edinburgh Airport, one that faces its own problems (such as tunnelling under the runway) but which at least offers a railway station with direct services to practically all parts of Scotland. There's no need to change trains at Waverley, you simply board at Aberdeen, Inverness, Kirkcaldy, even Newcastle (the King's Cross to Aberdeen service will pass the airport station) and you will get with ease to an airline check-in desk.

Faced with the choice of a simple journey to Edinburgh or a complex expedition to Glasgow when the flights being offered are of similar price or to a similar holiday destination, where do you think passengers will opt for?

Surely Edinburgh Airport becomes the most attractive option? Is it any wonder that a second runway is considered a possibility for Edinburgh? And yet the promoters of the Glasgow railway have not taken into account the impact that Edinburgh's better connections to Scottish towns and cities will have on their train set's business plan. Indeed their projections show that even by 2030 the largest group of people (47 per cent) using the service will be commuters between Paisley and Glasgow.

To make the idea work it requires a rail link between Glasgow's two separate rail stations that would open it up to the whole of Scotland - but that's not being offered. Ironically I voted against the scheme because it lacked ambition - I believe it will fail because it is being done on the cheap. Hardly an anti-Glasgow attitude.

But then such ungrateful paranoids, be they politicians or proles, that look out from Glasgow ignore the facts. This is the Glasgow that had the New National Theatre Company sent to Easterhouse and SportsScotland ordered to Drumchapel. Surely nothing to do with sport and arts ministers Frank McAveety, Mike Watson and Patricia Ferguson all being Glasgow MSPs?

Of the 3098 government department or agency jobs that have been created - or relocated from Edinburgh - some 1370 of them have gone to Glasgow. Another 1736 are currently under review - such as Registrars of Scotland - and the favourite location for most of those is, of course, Glasgow.

The Executive gave Glasgow the thumbs-up over Edinburgh for the Commonwealth Games bid, promising a 13 million indoor arena and has ploughed hundreds of millions into the Pacific Quay development on the Clyde to keep the BBC in Glasgow when many in the Beeb admit that at the very least news and current affairs should be relocated to where things happen - Edinburgh.

It's the same Glasgow that is having a five-mile extension to the M74 for 500m and is hoping for Scottish taxpayers to fund another 550m exhibition centre.

What has Edinburgh had in return? A Trojan horse of a Parliament building that has been a scandalous waste of money and has allowed west coast politicians into the heart of our city to vote time and time again for Edinburgh jobs to go west and taxpayers' money to be poured into their economy. Then, as if that wasn't impudent enough, they insist that parliament stops at five o'clock so they can catch the earliest train back home in time to put their feet up for River City.

Their Glasgow-centric view of the world distorts not just their politics (spending other people's money is the solution invariably chosen) but colours their view of what the rest of Scotland is like. Well, it's not a mirror image of Glasgow or its surrounding dependencies. Aberdeen, Dundee and, dare I say it, Edinburgh, are as different from Glasgow as they are from each other, just as the problems and opportunities of communities in our fishing villages, farmlands, Border moors and Highland mountains are different too.

It is, however, the west coast urban agenda that drives the parliament, banning fur farms that don't exist or declaring sectarianism is Scotland's shame when it is a cancer emanating from two tumours in the heart of Glasgow.

Edinburgh on the make through devolution? Don't get me started.