Edinburgh trams - a watchword for incompetence and what has become the business model round the world for "how not to run a project" have just come up with another incredible idea to add to the list of foolish, misguided and irresponsible decisions connected to this project.
This new development is what Council officials are calling a "tram shop" and it is to be on Shandwick Place - they are taking over a shop 'Sugacane', which was forced of business due to the tram works.
Even the Deputy Leader of the Council, Steve Cardownie, branded the idea "ludicrous" and local business leaders said that they did not ask for it, so it must be the brainchild of that incompetent group of city planning officials who have been responsible for so many ill conceived schemes which have cost the city tax payers many, many millions of pounds over several years.
It is understood that the "tram shop" would serve as a focus for the tram project and will have staff to answer questions. There will also be presentations and talks about the trams. Although Council officials claim that there will be no special security or protection for staff working there, one suspects that the "tram shop" could well serve as a focus for the anger and frustration of residents, tradespeople and anyone who is thoroughly fed up with the constant failures which have bedevilled this disastrous project.
We are told that it will only cost some £160,000 which is simply chicken feed when one considers that the project is going to cost the city in excess of £1.3 Billion when interest payments are taken into account. Oh yes, the Liberal Democrats want to foist more tram lines on the city - no thank you!
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What this would be is a propaganda shop, as that it is all it would be peddling.
With the project having long been intellectually bankrupt, it already risks, yet again, being financially bankrupt despite the extra £231,000,000 being borrowed, if recent press reports are correct.
Unwilling, and indeed unable to face the facts and tell it like it is, the beleagured and dwindling band of believers thrash around for any idea however feeble to distract everyone.
The grotesque symbolism of throwing borrowed money to set up a pretend shop, in the premises of a real shop forced to close by the very project the 'tram shop' is meant to 'explain' to the confused citizenry seems to have escaped everyone down the chain who approved this
The complete lack of realism, grip, perspective and plain commonsense now paralysing real decison making could not be better illustrated than by this benighted idea spluttering forth from a desperate Council hierarchy that from top to bottom knows it is out of it's depth, out of cash, out of credibility and out of time.