Edinburgh Sucks! | Taxigate II

Andrew Burns

Taxigate II - The Cooncil

By The Basa ⋅ March 15, 2006 ⋅

Teflon Don who was spouting his mouth off on Edinburgh’s new talk radio at the weekend and telling listeners that how he used the bus and walked round the city it seems may have been yet another porky. It seems as though FastBlacks are Mr. Anderson’s favourite method of travel between appointments and his hoose at The Spinney.

The figures show seven senior councillors, including council leader Donald Anderson, made a total of 488 trips at a cost to the taxpayer of more than £3500 over a year from November 2004 to October last year.

The leader of the Labour administration, Cllr Anderson, who normally catches the bus to get to work, claimed for 167 journeys either from the City Chambers or Cockburn Street to his home in Gilmerton, or the other way round.

Well, well, well. What is now so surprising is that when Teflon Don is spending so much time in taxis that he was considering carrying a sleeping bag, why were the drivers not bending his ear about the nightmare he and his crony Bumbling Andy Burns was making of the traffic management of the city - or were they and he was just ignoring them.

Interestingly, Labour’s Pilton councillor Billy Fitzpatrick - who does not have a special responsibility on the council’s executive - racked up a bill of more than £540 travelling in a cab between his Granton home and work or vice versa and I am sure our friends over at Piltonsucks.com will be covering that one.

Other councillors charged similar trips to the public purse, but no other elected member made more than a handful of claims during the year.

So the next time you are on the bus going home from your work and you see a flash through the window, it may just be Teflon Don flying past in a taxi with the sun reflecting off his head.

More Info: City chiefs are facing probe on taxi runs