Labour failure

If the Labour Party wants to overcome its current woes (exemplified by its uninspiring leadership candidates for both Holyrood and Westminster) it should look no further than Fife.

Traditionally, Labour represented the interests and reflected the opinions of “ordinary” people rather than top management “elites”.

But, despite its controversial plan to relocate our secondary school right up against our hospital/hospice, Fife’s Labour Council and councillors have not bothered in 30 months to ask for the opinions of “ordinary” staff at the “coal faces” in either school or hospital, but only the “elites” in its own Education Directorate and NHS Fife.

They have not identified any positive advantages for that site, nor made any effort to consult or explain to the neighbouring residents how a school – with 1,400 pupils, 19 school buses four times daily, floodlit sports fields used until 10pm, and a smoking biomass chimney and massive drainage tank just above their housing – would affect their amenity and day-to-day lives.

Many are retired and/or in sheltered housing. Many of them, and school and hospital staff, are probably natural longstanding Labour supporters. And Labour wonders at their electoral disaster!

John Birkett

Horseleys Park

St Andrews