A long anonymous tract was circulated electronically yesterday – as ‘The Voice of Oban’, graced by no names but working hard to smear the now Independent local Councillor and former SNP Leader of Argyll and Bute Council Roddy McCuish.
The many pages are focused on two issues – the proposed sale of the former Rockfield School to ACHA for housing development; and the failure of the Oban CHORD project.
There are legitimate issues to be raised on both of these matters, the more seriously related to the shambles and the cost of the Oban CHORD project – but the issues appear to be secondary to their value in offering an occasion to make highly contentious allegations against Councillor McCuish, whose personal integrity is unarguable; and against Argyll Community Housing Association [ACHA], Argyll and Bute Council and various councillors and officers.
The issue of the sale of Rockfield School is aggravated by the obvious failure of Argyll and Bute Council in anything resembling competent stewardship of the physical assets it is suppose to manage in the public interest.
While the context of the proposed sale of Rockfield has not been well handled – that is an unfortunate and familiar characteristic of this failing local authority rather than any markedly eye opening departure from a capable norm.
The massive sums paid to consultants on the entire CHORD charade – and he percentage they represent of the total cost of the scheme – are beyond defence.
However, driving the ‘The Voice of Oban’ into broadcast are repeated and venomous attacks on the good name of a genuinely respected local councillor, Roddy McCuish. Amongst other traducings, the tract imaginatively now blames Mr McCuish for the catastrophic collapse of the SNP group in leading coalition administrations at Argyll and Bute Council for around 18 months after they were elected in May 2012 as the largest group of councillors.
As everyone knows – and as For Argyll demonstrated in written evidence we published at the time – of emails sent by members of the SNP hierarchy to its local members and councillors, Councillors McCuish and Robb, the two SNP leaders in this period, were felled deliberately by their own party . This was done in one of the most destructive failures in political judgment imaginable – for fear that the then SNP-led council might make decisions that would be unpopular – and damage the vote for independence, now on the near horizon, hence the panicking smear efforts.
Councillor McCuish may take comfort from the obvious fact that he is seen as a real threat to the internally riven remnant of Oban, Lorn and the Isles SNP brigade.
In the party’s betrayal of the voters who gave it their trust in May 2012 and in its savage destruction, in its perceived political interests, of its two leaders across three attempted administrations – two under Concillor McCuish – it has seen its local support wither in the resignations of four local councillors from the party. This has produced two by-elections in recent months – one in each of the two Oban-local wards, Oban South and the Isles – Ward 4; and Oban North and Lorn, Ward 5.
The outcome of those resignations and by-elections is that where the SNP in May 2012 had four of the total of eight councillors in those two wards – the single most powerful group - they now have none.
The bilious abuse of Councilor McCuish and the reputational damage casually strewn widely around a spectrum of organisations, businesses and individuals by ‘The Voice of Oban’ would appear to originate in local SNP circles.
The circulation list for this tract, in addition to various media outlets and statutory bodies, includes the names of four senior SNP figures – First Minister, Alex Salmond; Deputy First Minister, Nicola Sturgeon; Finance Secretary, John Swinnney; and Education Secretary and local SNP MSP, Michael Russell. No other individuals are on the list.
The anonymous poison-penners who describe themselves as ‘The Voice of Oban’, self-appointedly ‘speaking for the people of Oban’, clearly imagine that their party principals will be delighted by their enterprise; and feel that it does sterling [sorry] service to the party and to its core cause.
That just may have been a serious miscalculation on all fronts. Whoever these voices are, they are untouchables.
Below are images of the pages of the communication that has been circulated in hard copy.
