Is there anybody who believes that councils in Scotland don't need more money?
You only have to be a person in need of social care or who used to enjoy public libraries or be a motorist old enough to remember when the roads didn’t regularly give you punctures or just to look around you at the state of the public realm, to realise that things used to be better than they are now in our local communities.
Of course, priorities change which might direct expenditure in different ways from the past and of course there are always ways to improve efficiency of delivery but the basic and obvious truth is that our local public services are grossly underfunded.
Local authorities' reserves have been stripped away. The easy cuts have all been done. The cuts made now are deep into bone. Councils desperately try to balance the books by selling assets or gouging motorists with absurd parking charges, charges for collecting garden waste and anything else they can. They have no choice, it is not their fault. The numbers simply do not add up.
The Scottish Government, whilst blaming everything on Westminster when in fact most of its difficulties are homemade, exerts an iron grip on Scottish councils. The Government in Edinburgh tries to dictate what money is spent on according to its own priorities not those of local communities and it seeks to control the level of council tax for its own political ends.
The freeze – another freeze – in council tax announced by the SNP Government last year was an act of economic and social vandalism towards local communities. There was no need for it, no logical case was made nor was there even a public clamour for it. The policy was plucked from the air by Humza Yousaf to try to cheer up delegates at the SNP's dismal annual conference.
Nobody was consulted about the freeze, nobody thought it through properly, they just did it to look smart.
The Scottish Government then tells us all not to worry, they will make up the shortfall caused by freezing council tax by giving councils a bit more (though nowhere near enough) money.
Where does this money come from? It comes from you and me in the form of other taxes raised or services cut. There is no more money at all. Social housing, the arts, enterprise, schools all have less money in order to pay for this stunt on council tax.
The supposedly extra money which has been found to compensate councils for playing ball comes with strings. Councils can only get this extra funding if they don't put their council tax up. This is bullying pure and simple. Do as I say and I will see you right. Defy me and you will suffer. Control, control, control from the centre and a democratic deficit rammed home by a Scottish Government constantly whining that it cannot do exactly as it pleases.
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Most councils, caught between a rock and a hard place of getting a bit of extra money only if they don’t put up council tax and not getting a share of the extra money if they do put up council tax, take the easy way out.
Why expose your council tax payers to the reality that council tax needs to rise when you can get most of the money from the Scottish Government instead?
One by one the local councils fall into line. One cannot blame them, this unfair choice is not of their making.
A champion of common sense and decency then steps forward. Small, unexpected, off message, in Mr Yousaf's outrageous slur "unjustifiably", Argyll and Bute Council votes not to play the game and decides to increase council tax by 10 per cent. They tell the truth, that more money is required to pay for the services which their area needs. They do the right thing and stand up to the Scottish Government bullying in the interests of the people they serve.
The pressure on them from the Scottish Government to recant and on others not to follow suit is no doubt immense.
Inverclyde are now trying to follow Argyll and Bute's lead and having tense chats with High Command in Edinburgh who are clearly anxious to avoid a broad coalition of local democracy emerging against them. Inverclyde are challenging the Scottish Government to do what they should have done in the first place which is to have provided additional financial support and then let individual councils make their own decision on council tax rates. I wish them luck.
Argyll and Bute Council is not controlled by any one political party and the councillors will, as Mr Yousaf snarls, "have to answer to their constituents". Indeed they will and I hope that in the interests of both decent local services and democracy the voters of Argyll and Bute reward their councillors who have bravely done the right thing by voting them back in.
In contrast, Mr Yousaf should go back to Holyrood and think again.
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