Tory leader Jeremy Balfour upbeat about poll fortunes

It’s the first test of his leadership of the Conservative group at the City Chambers at the polls, and he believes that, not only will the party have more councillors come May 4 when the votes are all in, but that the Tories could well be part of the council administration – for the first time in almost three decades.

Indeed, it’s been so long since the Conservatives held any sway in the Capital it’s difficult to remember that, before 1984, Edinburgh had more or less been consistently run by Tories since elections began – and also sent them to Westminster.

However, since the Thatcher era, times have been hard for those of a blue political hue. Councillor Balfour, though, seems unbowed by the weight of such a poor polling history. In fact, he’s rather bouncy about the campaign and is especially delighted that the council elections won’t be skewed by concurrent Holyrood or Westminster elections.

“People can really focus on what matters for Edinburgh rather than either parliament,” he says. “I’m very excited about the fact that people will be able to judge alone on the visions that the parties have for Edinburgh, although I do think we have to work hard to make people realise how important these elections are.

“Schools, older people’s services, transport – all of these are delivered by the council and so the decisions we make over five years will affect everybody’s lives. People need to come out and vote and make sure they feel their vote is important – we don’t want a low turnout.

“But I am convinced we are going to have more than 11 Conservative councillors after the election.”

The slight problem is that, under the proportional representation system, it’s possible to end up with a coalition council that people didn’t vote for, leaving them feeling just as disenfranchised as they did under first past the post.

“Clearly, there will be a coalition of sorts, and right now we don’t know what that will look like as it would be presumptious to judge how people will vote. Right now, I’m interested in getting as many of our excellent candidates elected as possible,” he says.

“Of course, we will seek to work with other groups post-election if we can get some of our policies adopted. We want there to be a real Conservative force within the city to do what’s best for Edinburgh over the next five years.

“We wouldn’t rule out working with any other political group as long as our agenda is being delivered. And we’re bringing to the table policies and ideas that I think are radical and can help Edinburgh become a really successful city.”

There is a certain naivety to Cllr Balfour, which is engaging and belies the fact that he’s been a councillor for the last 17 years. But he says he’s now long enough in the tooth to know what people really want – good services, low tax and a council that is financially competent.

“From the start we would introduce a zero base budget,” he says. “So before 2013 we would have officials look at every budget for each department and justify why it was getting the amount of money it does. Why does one department spend £30,000 on that, and another £5 million on this? Ask the questions – do we need to be spending that? Are we getting value for money, should we stop it, is there another way of doing it?

“It’s the only way to go about reducing the council’s deficit and still provide essential front-line services. It would be a major amount of work across the council, but then the public would know that every penny was justified.

“From our research and what we’ve been told by officers, we believe there is money there which could be spent better on front-line services.”