The Edinburgh trams are a fucking tragedy

The Edinburgh trams are a disastrous fuck up of monstrous proportions. I mind it was hearing some council boy talk about how the work in Leith Walk had significantly improved that locale’s internet infrastructure or something in a thanks to the billions spent on NASA we’ve got Teflon bullshite that the magnitude of its fucked-upness became apparent. But, it now seems that its totally sorted and we’ll be getting a tram that goes all the way along Princess Street to St Andrews Square. Whoop di do.

Or perhaps not.I reckon its worth remembering the root cause of the trams being a fuck up was apparent to everyone that had to sit there, stuck in traffic trying to get to work/home of an evening; unbelievably bad management.

Travelling up Leith walk you’d see evidence of this on a daily basis - first an area would be fenced off. Sometime a few days later a hole would be dug and/or materials dumped. Time would pass. More time would pass (heck one hole even got to celebrate being dug and left for a year before anyone did anything about it). Finally, as in the picture above, 6 or so blerks would be sighted by the hole - but rarely a minute before 9 or even a second after 5. One might be having a go with a pick , two would be gawping at the man listlessly picking at the ground or else picking their noses. Of the remaining three, one would be on his moby leaving the other two to read the Sun or have a chat about something. I know this was the case, like tens of thousands of others, because it was what we saw when we looked out the window all the times we were stuck in tram work delayed traffic. And it went on for fucking years. And no it was never a farce because it killed off businesses i.e. it destroyed jobs and livelihoods.

Now, some very obvious failings were going on here. Either the management over estimated the labour required, recruited people with the wrong skills, was incapable of coordinating i.e. managing, well anything really, had no ability to phase the recruitment and allocation of resource and so on and so on in a probably every fault I‘ve just listed and plenty more applied.

Alongside that I reckon the contractual terms were such no one on the job needed to give a fuck; people worked? The contractors got paid. People didn’t work? The contractors got paid. And lets be clear the cunts responsible for doing the contracts was the council and its paid professional advisors.

But, hey that’s all in the past because now we’re getting lovely trams that go right into the heart of the city. Then you read the report just issued and think aw fer fuck sake have they no learned anything?

Wading thru it I liked the reference to the Scottish Futures Trust, the SNP’s not PFI but actually are PFI people, who were consulted about financing the trams. This is all the report says; “In order to assess other avenues of funding discussions have been held with
the Scottish Futures Trust“. Cool, so that‘ll be that wee SNP quango getting to claim its saved even more money it hasn’t.

Having gone thru the rigmarole of chewing the fat with that tax payer funded waste of space and with absolutely nothing to say as a result, the report then details what the actual advisors it commissioned, Inverleith Capital, have to say about borrowing dosh to pay for the trams. Cool, except, lets be honest Inverleith Capital may well be terribly New Town and charming, but could they ever be considered up to a job of this magnitude? Seriously? Like were the references made in the report to considering a bond issue a hastily tacked on afterthought or what?

Anyhoo, then we get the hard sell as to why we need the trams “It is worth remembering that there are significant revenues derived from the tram project that would offset the costs of the project”, which is lovely I guess, but don’t they need netting off against the loss of bus ticket revenue?

But hang on a mo cos “(t)he reputational damage to Edinburgh and to Scotland of failing to complete the project would also be significant and could harm the City’s future investment prospects“. Hmm, no, the damage has already been done and anyway what investment prospects exactly? Like does the council actually think Tesco won’t open another shop or some property developer develop more offices because the council is fucking useless?

Here though is the killer reason “(f)ailure to complete would also have significant environmental consequences”. Except that’s bollocks. Any argument that refers to the environment is pretty much spurious by definition because all the criteria used are so makey-uppy.

The other thing of course is that the environmental and other costs already incurred because of the trams have never been taken into account. Like today the potential introduction of charges for roadworks in England and Wales made the news because they’re estimated to cost the economy c.£4bn a year - now yeah, yeah, that’s another makey uppy number, but the slow down of economic activity due to tram work related congestion, the wasted fuel and general pain in the arsed-ness of travelling thru Edinburgh have cost something, just not anything the council ever factors into its sums give or take the insulting joke of rate relief or what not (takings down 60% on the year Mr Shopkeeper because of the tramworks? Never you mind, you don't need to give us as much money this year). Oh and all those cars waiting at traffic lights has also done environmental damage (the joke here being the Scottish government pissed more money away on posters put up near tram works advising motorists to watch their fuel consumption when stuck in traffic in an insult to injury type styley).

So nah, I’m not convinced in the slightest this is even the least bit sorted, partly because it’s the same old bullshit, but also because I’ve been past the work now ongoing at Haymarket a few times and it’s the same old same old mismanagement shite - men scratching their arses as opposed to doing anything and no much happenning apart from that.

Rather, if I was to try and identify some of the benefits the trams have and will deliver it’s the following; its got me cycling to work cos the delays were that bad and it’s a wonderful example of how economic externalities are defined entirely by politics. Apart from that it’s a bunch of bollocks; it should be stopped and every councillor who voted for it named and shamed, the senior council management dismissed for being grossly incompetent and all advisors/contractors informally barred from winning any government work in Britain ever again until they pay back say 80% of their fees (a type of move I've seen work in the private sector). And the TIE lot can fuck off and die.

P.S. (25/8) - so it's only going as far as Haymarket after all except when the leader of the council said not going to St Andrew's square would be "threatening this city's future financial vibrancy" what in the name of christ did she actually mean? "Vibrancy"? Eh? Whit? What does that mean exactly? Like HBOS and RBS blow themselves the fuck up, but no having a tram going along Princess Street is a threat to Edinburgh's "financial vibrancy"? Is that even a fucking word? For the love of utter christ what a stupid, ignorant cunt (I do like the Labour party bitch move though - vote for it in the first place, then vote against getting something that would provide a vaguely sensible service. Those cunts really have no shame whatsoever).

P.P.S. (23/2) - That BBC Scotland documentary on the trams was pretty good, the one where they identified how the contracts were the main issue and how (lets all blame) TIE essentially lied about the implications of what'd been signed up to. The social worker councillor who queried WTF he was doing supervising it all given his professional experience was also good fun given the stupid shitfer was too dumb to realise the broader implications, ramifications and applications of his don't blame me I know nothing excuse.

Since then though I reckon one of the other main things I was waffling on about still applies cos jezuz fucking christ the actual work is being badly managed. Back when Leith Walk was being pointlessly dug up what really stood out and riled was the ratio between the number of blerks getting paid to do fuck all beside a hole and the length of time traffic was delayed and/or diverted. Now to be fair since then I've seen some examples of blerks actually working beyond 5.30pm. However, on the way to a meeting the other day I also saw a van full of blerks sat reading the paper who were still sat there when I was heading back to my office after the meeting i.e. they'd all earned whatever their hourly rate is for doing fuck all. This is at a time when Edinburgh council is cutting the amount spent on teaching materials for some subjects to something like 20p per year per pupil i.e. fuck all. This is wrong. This is clear evidence the tram works are still being very badly managed at a time when essential services are being cut back.

Thankfully, the Council appears to be destroying records so if there is any enquiry those originally involved will be able to lie through their teeth and/or plead mea culpa to the point where they can get off completely Scot free.