Class is the dividing line in debate over trams

AT THE risk of sounding like an advert for Marks & Spencer, the Edinburgh tram is not just a local transport issue. The Edinburgh tram is a national governance issue. And the way this "little local difficulty" is handled by the SNP at Holyrood and the Lib Dem-SNP coalition at Edinburgh City Council will speak volumes about this country's real appetite for new politics.

The SNP has made no secret of its intention to ditch plans for the 592 million Edinburgh trams project, along with EARL, the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link.

Last week, the SNP's Kenny MacAskill summarised the party's reasons: "The trams scheme would cost over 700 million. For that, you could renew every bus in the Lothians as a low-boarding, low-emissions vehicle. You could run the entire service in Edinburgh free for the next seven years. 700 million for a tram scheme that covers only 7 per cent of Edinburgh is hugely questionable.

"And 1 billion for a tunnel under a live runway at Edinburgh airport [the EARL scheme] is very dangerous.

"Government is about how to get the best bang for your bucks. I believe we would get that by improving existing rail and bus networks instead."

Bullish talk - but then Mr McAskill's first-past-the-post election victory over Labour in the Edinburgh East and Musselburgh seat was attributed by some to the SNP's opposition to trams. Mr MacAskill doubled his vote and saw a swing of almost 13 per cent to the SNP - the second biggest in the country. Perhaps it might behove the city's business and political leaders to consider the SNP might have a point.

People posting comments to this paper's website and e-mailers to my radio show have overwhelmingly backed the SNP's proposed rethink, prompting a spirited response from tram supporters posing valid questions about the representative nature of bloggers and suggesting that "the Nats are trying to 'guilt' the people of Edinburgh out of money desperately needed to drag this city's transport infrastructure into the modern age and cut congestion. Trams will get more people out of their cars. Let's get them up and running now".

This view was echoed by Robin Harper MSP, the co-leader of the Scottish Greens, who said: "If [the SNP] try to block trams we will do everything we can to stop that. So far as I can see, there is still a majority in favour of a tram system for Edinburgh."

Well, is there?

I would have agreed with this perception until a meeting I chaired on the eve of the congestion charging vote in Edinburgh two years ago. As 600 people filed into the EICC, Andrew Burns, the council's transport chief at the time, muttered nervously that they looked like a lynch mob. But, as it turned out, cordons were not uppermost on anyone's mind. On entry, each person had listed their main beef about the congestion charging proposals.

And it was not the cost, the timing, the complexity of two cordons, the unfairness to outlying council tax payers or the possible damage to Edinburgh's commercial viability. It was trams. Even though, that night, the future of trams was not at stake. What followed was the sensible, integrated transport debate Scotland needs, instead of the piecemeal proposal it currently gets.

One pensioner introduced himself as a working-class Labour voter who had lived on Leith Walk all his life. "I remember the noise those trams made - and they didn't stop near our house anyway," he said.

Assured that the modern tram would be an infinitely quieter beast, he replied: "What's wrong with the bus? Are the folk buying yuppie penthouse flats at the waterfront too posh to get on a bus with us?" There was resounding applause.

The old Leither had put his finger on the unspoken word lurking beneath the big trams debate: class.

At each of the ten Votepod debates I chaired during the election campaign, there was big support for the SSP's free public transport policy and angry mentions of the fact bus travel in many areas stops at 6pm - rendering free bus passes for the elderly effectively unusable. For people without a car, the need for investment in better bus travel is paramount.

But for middle-class people with cars, surveys show they will not consider leaving them behind for anything less than a train. And that attachment is long overdue a serious challenge. Part of the train fixation stems from nostalgia amongst grown-up boys who spent too much time drooling over Jenny Agutter in The Railway Children. Part is based on the greater dependability and predictability of trains - though cities like Dundee have transformed bus use with the electronic display of routes and accurate arrival times at bus stops.

But a very large part of the middle-class aversion to buses is caused by their dirtiness, dodginess and - to be frank - their overpopulation by the underclass. A piece of priceless snobbery and a classic catch-22 situation which can only be tackled by massive investment in buses.

Which can best be tackled if they were re-regulated. Which may be impossible for the SNP with the backing of Stagecoach's Brian Soutar and without bus-friendly parties like SSP and Solidarity in Holyrood.

Perhaps Edinburgh's politicians are agreed the trams and EARL should go ahead. Just as they were convinced the Scottish Parliament building and congestion charging should go ahead.

The people of Edinburgh and Scotland are asking legitimate and long-repressed questions about transport plans. And the bulk of folk questioning trams are not anti-Edinburgh, nor anti-green. I suspect a lot of them live on Leith Walk.