The trams: same old, same old

According to Lesley Riddoch in today's Scotsman, we're all in a bit of a lather over Edinburgh's tram shambles: "Edinburgh is collectively furious. The rest of Scotland is not far behind."

Er, nae really, Lesley, at least not in the Planet Politics global nerve centre here in distinctly autumnal Dundee.

It's not that I'm not personally furious, because most of the time I am. It's just that the trams haven't really changed things much for me. It's more of a case of same old, same old. Again.

Let's simplify things by ignoring the rationale for the project in the first place (although the whole thing has often been described as a 'vanity project'). Just assume that trams for Edinburgh were an unproblematic and uncontested 'good thing'.

Thereafter, of course, the whole thing went off the rails, hit the buffers, and ended up as a political and national train wreck, sort of thing.

The highly paid public sector officials and private sector professionals made a complete mess of the initial blueprint. Not to worry though, because they're accountable to councillors, who would see through the whole thing. Er, hello?

So the project was flawed from the outset, and things just got worse. You know, the usual cost overruns, shambolic organisation and then the whole thing imploded into a commercial, legal and political shambles.

Hence the usual disputes between the various 'stakeholders', attempts at face saving, exploiting the situation for political gain blah, blah.

With all the stakeholders doing their level best to keep the facts of the matter from the public, of course. And, in particular, attempting to maximise political capital. But it's not just the politicians who do this - in the final analysis, the bureaucrats and private sector are all involved in a political game of sorts.

Equally, however the project reaches its denouement, all involved will continue to give precedence to their own damage limitation or best advantage, as the case may be. The public will play second fiddle to all of this.

Problem is, that's to a greater or lesser extent just the norm in public life. The difference with the trams is not because it qualitatively represents anything new, it's just that quantitatively it's the usual scenario on a grand scale.

Thus although the likes of Lesley Riddoch and Kenny Farquharson seem to be getting a bit het up about the whole thing, it hasn't really fazed yours truly in the slightest.

But only because I was just a bit worked up in the first place!

A lot has been made of right-winger Charles Moore's recent polemic against the high profile economic, political and moral failures of the past few years, resulting in a population "disillusioned with our debased democracies".

But while that was construed as a critique of right leaning politics in general and free markets in particular, Moore's solution wasn't a lurch to the left.

Indeed, the Edinburgh trams debacle is arguably symptomatic of the kind of left-leaning, statist solution to our problems that Charles Moore also decries.

Perhaps not as morally bankrupt as the likes of the MPs' expenses fiasco and the phone hacking scandal, but certainly bankrupt in the financial and political sense.

Ultimately it's not a case of crudely choosing between the left and right in terms of looking for solutions, because it represents a failure of politics across the board.

It's an age characterised by self-serving cynicism, where personal, political and corporate responsibility are mere inconveniences, and honesty and candour are lost in a sea of marketing, spin and soundbite.

Which is why our politicians are too busy politicking to even start thinking of how to really stop the rot, never mind reversing it.