Limbo council needs quick answer

By Iain MacDonald BBC Scotland

Those who have been watching the signals say it had all the inevitability of a train crash. It has now happened.

The Inverness-based council has an annual budget of almost �700m

Highland Council has been thrown into confusion by a split in its ruling independent/SNP coalition.

The row between the 34 independents and the 17-strong SNP group came to a head after one of the senior independents, Isobel McCallum from the Black Isle, called for her SNP colleague Pauline Munro, from Inverness, to step aside and let somebody else take over pressing the case for Highland farming in Europe.

Angry SNP chiefs - Ms Munro is their deputy group leader at the council - called for Ms McCallum's resignation.

Though she did offer to stand down, the independents then decided it would want her to take leadership of their group.

That was the last straw for the SNP and, on Wednesday night, they pulled the plug on the coalition.

But it has not just been about who should go to Brussels. The Highland authority is Scotland's biggest in land mass terms, with an annual budget of almost �700m.

Council convener Sandy Park has sometimes looked like a man wondering where the next rail wreck would take place

Last May was the first time it installed a ruling administration along party political lines. Behind-the-scenes bargaining led to a coalition between the independents and the SNP, but the going has never been easy.

SNP councillors said trying to keep the alliance together and pointing in the same political direction was like "herding cats".

Disgruntled independent backbenchers have muttered that they did not join the authority to carry out SNP policy.

There was an early row when independent Roddy Balfour, elected as chairman of the big-spending education, culture and sport committee, hit out at expenditure on Eden Court Theatre in Inverness - directly contradicting council policy.

Despite support for Mr Balfour from some independent councillors - and some from other parties - he had to resign before he even chaired his first committee meeting.

In Caithness, an SNP councillor lost the party whip when he sided with independent councillors against the coalition's policy on Gaelic road signs.

Municipal muscle

An independent marched out of the administration after the council got a letter from actress Elaine C Smith, urging them to back calls for a nationwide referendum on independence.

The council's independent convener, Sandy Park, from Nairn, has sometimes looked like a man wondering where the next rail wreck would take place.

Mr Park is now likely to be reading the riot act to his group behind closed doors. In public, he said most Highland independents really were independent and that was healthy for the Highlands.

But he conceded there must be discipline - and that is important because of the numbers game.

There was an early row over the Eden Court Theatre refurbishment

At best, the independents can count on 34 councillors. The SNP has 17. The largest opposition party is the Liberal Democrats, with 21.

Labour has seven, and there is one non-aligned former SNP man. In all, 80 councillors.

The independents will want to seek new partnerships to give them a bit more municipal muscle.

What Mr Park is likely to tell them is that - given the recent history - nobody wants to board this train, if there is a danger of more bust-ups.

The Nationalists, meanwhile, have admitted talking to the Lib Dems, but the Lib Dems are keeping their own counsel.

The council's programme for the entire four-year term has already been decided, with considerable input from the SNP.

Will another party want to sign on for that? Could the Lib Dems and the SNP find common cause to derail the independents? Would they want to?

And could Labour's seven representatives yet find themselves holding the balance of power?

These are questions this council needs to answer - and quickly. The present limbo-like arrangement is, by common consent, no way to run a railway, or a �700m budget.

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