TENSIONS within a feud-hit council administration face coming to a head, with Labour Party insisting a crunch meeting is brought forward.
Councillors in North Lanarkshire will vote on whether to give their beleaguered boss Jim McCabe another year in the post when they gather for their AGM.
However, party bosses expect a pre-election truce within the group embroiled in its own civil war in recent months.
The meeting, like others held by Labour groups in Scottish local government, has been brought forward by a few months following instructions by the party's general secretary north of the border, Brian Roy.
Mr Roy's father, Frank, is expected to face a tight battle in his bid to be re-elected in Motherwell and Wishaw, which falls within North Lanarkshire.
There have been concerns within Labour in Lanarkshire the split within the party at the local council sparked by the sacking a councillor who investigated a multi-million-pound public contract involving the authority would impact on the run-up to the May Westminster poll.
Mr McCabe, one of the giants of Scottish local government, has already seen off an SNP bid to oust him as North Lanarkshire leader over his relationship with senior executives at Mears Scotland.
But one senior party source said: "Had the meeting taken place in mid to late May, when it's supposed to, and we'd maybe lost a seat or two Jim McCabe would be toast.
"As it is members at the AGM who maybe thought this was the place to air their grievances face speaking out or keeping their heads down and let what's happened happen. That's what they'll be expected to do.
"My guess is more than a few just won't turn up."
The local authority has a £30 million-a-year contract with Mears Scotland, run by Willie Docherty, husband of Glasgow Lord Provost Sadie Docherty, personal friends of Mr McCabe, with recent losses by the firm passed on to tenants.
The sacking of Labour's Tommy Morgan, who was also the catalyst for the notorious 1990s Monklands scandal being blown open, has split the administration.
A Labour spokesman said all groups across Scottish local government had been asked to bring forward their AGMs ahead of the short campaign in the run-up to May 7.
He said an email had been circulated in mid-January with a request they be completed by the close of February, describing the move as "standard practice".
Glasgow, where Labour also faces an uphill battle to retain all its MPs, held its AGM a fortnight ago with leader Gordon Matheson re-elected unopposed.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article