“MERRY CHRISTMAS” THAT WILL COST YOU THE TAX PAYERS OF RENFREWSHIRE £3,500 COURTESY OF THE SNP.

 The full council meeting of Thursday 20/12/12 started very well with a choir of primary school children from Erskine who were the best choir I have seen or heard from primary school kids ever,

they were brilliant and produced a level of sophistication rarely seen in kids so young. Their confidence, their timing and their mastery of two part medley were obvious proof of their talent and the ability of the 2 teachers who were with them and whose names I can't remember but well done to all of them.

 Then it was on to the unnecessarily hard chore of the meeting, hard and unnecessary for reasons I will come to. Any attempt at seasonal good will was; in a premeditated way destroyed by the actions of the snp who set out to create as much bad feeling and ugly behaviour as they could come up with and believe me they are experts at that. This time though as I will explain, you dear readers the Renfrewshire Tax payers were included in the misery courtesy of the snp who decided to greatly extend the meeting with the cost being met by you, Merry Christmas then from the Renfrewshire snp group aided and abetted as always by our resident pantomime villain the one and only Libdem councillor Eileen McCartin. She, in her usual manner contributed to the length of the meeting by insisting on having her say on everything. Whether what she has to say makes any sense, helps anyone or contributes in any way to the proceedings is neither here nor there, it matters not when Eileen decides that we need some of her wisdom. The fact that the people of Renfrewshire at the recent council elections humiliated her and reduced the rump party she leads to 1 seat out of 40 and the lowest share of the popular vote does not deter her, she remains impervious to everything but blows. She is a high profile Christian is Eileen and she limbered up for the coming of the baby Jesus by giving us a sermon on the benefits of the Libdem/Tory Governmment and all their cuts, their bedroom tax and the Herod like brutality of the Atos inspectors sending dangerously sick people back to work. I wonder if her Libdem/Tory Government would have regarded that stable in Bethlehem as an extra bedroom and charged extra room tax for the child to be born. 

 "We don't care whose son you say you are having young lady that will be 14% more" 

 This snp mockery of a meeting lasted for six and a half hours, it normally takes less than 3 hours. The reason for this was the conduct of the snp who put down twelve motions, two or three is the norm. Approximately ten years ago I was given a figure of £800 an hour as the cost to run a full council meeting by the council's financial director, that cost would now be in excess of £1,000 an hour at least. This means the snp's self-indulgent stunt put up the additional and completely avoidable cost to you the tax payer by something in the region of £3,500 if we keep it at £1,000 an hour and it is probably more than that. We were treated to lectures on independence, building war ships, more statues for Renfrewshire (guess who pays?) and of course a robust defence of the Tory/Libdem Government and their cuts by the last of the Liberal Democrats, the neither liberal or democratic Cllr. Eileen McCartin and bear in mind dear reader you were paying for this. 

 snp leader Cllr. Lawson complained about the Chair not calling a lunch break which would have put your extra payment up by another £500 and he had this to say. "If you think that running the meeting without a break will put us off doing this again you are wrong, because we will be back to do it again"  You the tax payers of Renfrewshire should note that he doesn't know what the motions to council will be but he knows that they (the snp) will dream up some just like this time and they (the snp) will be back to do the same thing again, he doesn't say how often they will do this and he clearly has no concern for the costs of this shameful snp behaviour, behaviour that you the tax payers of Renfrewshire will have to pay for. I wonder if voters might like to tell councillors what they think of this snp/Libdem behaviour, we are not difficult to find. The local press is also a good way of venting your spleen at such outrageous and costly behaviour.