Letters: Defector Ashley Graczyk should stand for re-election

Ashely Graczyk pictured alongside ''Scottish Conservative Leader Ruth Davidson. Picture: Neil Hanna

The news that Ashley Graczyk the newly minted independent, and former Scottish Conservative and Unionist councillor for Sighthill/ Gorgie is to join the failing SNP group at the City Chambers really is beyond parody.

I well remember Miss Graczyk’s reaction, following the Returning Officer’s announcement of her election in 2017, when she ran around inside Meadowbank Stadium shrieking, squealing and punching the air with delight at becoming a Tory councillor, and of course, we were all delighted for her.

Union Jack flag-waving councillor to join SNP weeks after leaving Tories

Little did we know then just how fickle and how lacking in integrity she would turn out to be.

Miss Graczyk was elected by Scottish Conservative voters in Gorgie/ Sighthill to represent them, they did not elect her simply so that she could enjoy a councillor’s salary and then abandon them to strike attitudes as an ‘independent ‘Champion of the Disabled’.

Councillors have a duty to represent all of their constituents equally, whether disabled or otherwise, they are not elected to cherry pick, and Miss Graczyk currently represents no one but herself.

To further compound this disloyalty she is now cozying to a political party who wish to destroy the United Kingdom that she promised to defend during her election campaign, a campaign supported and paid for by the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party. It would seem that her election pledges were totally meaningless.

If this young lady has any integrity left, which seems unlikely, she will resign as a councillor and trigger a by-election, so that the voters of Gorgie/ Sighthill whom she has so badly let down, may be represented by a real Scottish Conservative. Go on Ashley, I dare you.

Paul R Penman, Scottish Conservative and Unionist Candidate, Leith Ward, Canongate, Edinburgh