Here’s an appeal from Friends of the Earth asking campaigners for Edinburgh’s tram to pass on a pdf depicting Alex Salmond (biggest fish of the SNP) as Borat. I can’t work out how to upload the pdf so, even better, here’s a photo of someone outside the Scottish Parliament getting across the message that even Kazakhstan has trams.
Obviously not Mr Salmond who is much too big a fish to fit into Borat’s trunks. (Thanks to Friends of the Earth Edinburgh for use of this photograph).
Today’s the day we will find out whether the SNP is really prepared to take part in consensus government, or whether they will simply ignore common sense, the Auditor General’s (generally favourable) review and the overwhelmingly majority cross-party support.
Time then for the final phase of the campaign. Bring out Borat.
I was at the Friends of the Earth meeting in May when the Borat offensive was revealed. It was a small but cheering affair attended by Labour and Lib Dem councillors as well as some friendly activists (still bearing the bruises of the Congestion Charge campaign). A creative plan of action was drawn up to counter the SNP proposal to ditch the tram.
Never mind the no-hopers who frequent the online comments of the Evening News, the tram has not only unusual cross party support from Labour, Tories, LibDems and Greens, but full backing from the business sector too. (At the recent City Region Conference, the Chamber of Commerce pressed the case for the tram with impressive vigour.)
FoE are seasoned campaigners so as you can imagine there was some serious strategic discussion at the campaign meeting. But some laughs too as we debated how to find a volunteer prepared to run through town dressed as Borat. I am impressed to see they actually found someone to do it!
So please pass on on the message. Keep pressing for the tram. And while you are at it, stop off on the way to gather some good ammunition from Transform Scotland and the new website dedicated to myths and truths of trams in Edinburgh.
Thanks for the technical tip Colin
PDF files are tricky. You can load them up to a file sharing site or you can open it and take a screenshot and open that in a paint programme and cut out the part you want. You can then resize and save as a jpeg and load it to your web page.
Nope, cancel that last comment, according to BBC Scotland News common sense (and a majority vote) won the day. The trams go ahead under close scrutiny of John Swinney who promises to keep a lid on costs.
No chance, the SNP deferred a decision until September. They are obviously trying to kill the scheme by constant delay, so they can say costs have risen.