A lot has been said in the last 48 hours or so about the Aberdeen City Council coalition deal agreed by the Scottish Conservatives, Labour and the Independent Alliance.
Kezia Dugdale’s decision to suspend all nine of the local Labour group was a terrible error of judgement.
She has abandoned her Aberdeen team.
But Jenny Laing and her city colleagues are right.
It is the Scottish leader who has got this badly wrong.
Cllr Laing made a decision to work across party lines locally in the best interests of the people of Aberdeen.
That’s exactly what our councillors should be doing.
In the last five years, the Labour-Conservative-Independent coalition has delivered for Aberdeen a £250 million City Region Deal, the £22m Third Don Crossing, a new £300m exhibition centre on the way and an innovative bond issue that raised £370m to pay for local infrastructure improvements.
Kezia is putting her own party politics ahead of what’s good for Aberdeen. She would rather see an independence-obsessed SNP at the reins instead of her own councillors.
It is also evidence of the Labour party hanging out to dry voters in Scotland’s third biggest city.
I have a message to those voters.
The Scottish Conservatives stand ready to take on the SNP all across the country in next month’s General Election.
We are rooted in the centre ground.
We are committed to workers’ rights, boosting low pay, getting a good deal for our fishermen and improving the education of our young people, so cruelly let down by this SNP government.
Together, with your help, we can lead the fightback against the SNP on June 8 and stop Nicola Sturgeon trying to pull our country apart with a second independence referendum.