He attempted to rationalise and explain away his untruths, the upshot of which is he tacitly accepted that Edinburgh City Council did not consult with the tram inquiry or its experts. Now, Cllr McVey has a degree in economics and studied international law at Edinburgh. The essence of law is the understanding of words and language. Are the people of Edinburgh to believe that he simply got his words wrong?

Calls to ditch Edinburgh tram ‘vanity project’ and use £90 million for public se...

His recent claim “that the project team also tested the final business case against the risk of past completed tram projects – an approach developed by academics from the University of Oxford’s Saïd Business School” rings hollow, given that the obvious way to gain this assurance would have been to consult directly with Professor Flyvbjerg, who heads up this institute and was one of the principal tram inquiry witnesses who was highly critical of the city council’s understanding and application of optimum bias.

Controversial plans to take trams to Newhaven will carry a £207m price tag.

Add to this the recent disclosure in John McClellan’s article that the £207m price tag has an additional whopping sum (not disclosed by Cllr McVey in his media blitz) of £50m contingency, taking the grand total up to £257m (News, February 14). This again leads one to think he has been liberal with the truth. We were told that the previous price of £165m contained a contingency of £30m but this huge increase to £257m would represent an increase approaching 100 per cent on the project cost in little over two years.

Cllr McVey’s credibility is in tatters. His case for extending the trams lies in ruins and he really should consider his position and do the honourable thing and resign.

John Carson, Kirkliston Road, South Queensferry.

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Letters: It’s time to do the right thing, Cllr Mcvey - resign