Edinburgh Council Leader Apologises After "Campaign Event" in City Chambers

Calls for a “thorough investigation” into what happened, after what appeared to be a Labour Party campaign event, hosted at the Council’s City Chambers building.

Despite a strict ban on political parties using public resources for promotional or campaign purposes, images circulated on social media showed parliamentary candidates Tracy Gilbert and Chris Murray posing in front of campaign posters at an event held at Labour’s group room at the City Chambers.

Leader of the Council’s Liberal Democrat Group Kevin Lang wrote to Labour leader Cammy Day on Wednesday, saying: “It is now five days since the event. Despite all the concern raised publicly by me and others, you have chosen to make no public statement addressing the controversy. There has been no acknowledgement of any wrongdoing, no regret, and no apology”.

That letter prompted a response from Cammy Day in which he offered an apology and promised to refer himself to the Standards Commission, encouraging fellow Labour Councillors who were present to do the same. The Council leader defended his decision to attend on the basis he thought it would be “a thank you/social event as opposed to a political campaigning event.”

“Folk should be under no illusions here, this was potentially a serious breach of the councillor code of conduct"

Lib Dem leader Kevin Lang told us he was “deeply concerned”:

“Folk should be under no illusions here, this was potentially a serious breach of the councillor code of conduct. We’re talking about taxpayer funded public facilities, they should not be used for party political campaigning and it’s important that an investigation gets to the bottom of what’s happened.”

The Council’s SNP group are bringing a motion later this month, which says the incident brought “the council into disrepute”. They want to see Chief Executive refer all Councillors who were there to the Standards Commission:

“This reflects badly, not just on the Labour group and those Labour Councillors that were present, but it reflects badly on the whole council"

SNP Councillor Kate Campbell said: “It was really obvious that this was a Labour campaigning event, and it was really obvious that it happened in the Labour group room in the City Chambers. Now that’s not in doubt, but what’s frustrating is that it took almost a week for any acknowledgement. So initially we just saw tweets getting deleted but we had no comment or explanation.”

“This reflects badly, not just on the Labour group and those Labour Councillors that were present, but it reflects badly on the whole council, so it’s incumbent on us to make sure this is properly and thoroughly investigated.”