IT was like the last day at school, all were happy and excited.

Everybody loved everybody and memories of previous disputes were long forgotten.

What permeated the air in the chamber was a total lack of humility.

The Provost who was chairing his last meeting after five years did not disappoint, mispronounced words by the score, and both the Chief Executive and the Clerk having to remind him to switch on his microphone etc.

A new addition to his adornments was observed, he was using a Hearing Amplifier.




Although vanity did appear to intrude, he took it off the one ear when the camera turned towards him and when it turned away he put it back on. (This is one of the rare shots showing him wearing it in his right ear)

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The most interesting item on the agenda was

COMMUNITY JUSTICE DRAFT OUTCOME IMPROVEMENT PLAN 2017- 2020

Mary Montague read out the overview of the 76 page report.


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Which relates to the new model for Community Justice which has transformed the community justice landscape to widen the perspective from criminal justice to community justice making it a much wider community response to prevent and reduce further offending by addressing its underlying causes; and supporting people who have committed offences to reintegrate into the community.

One of the opposition Cllrs asked about the public's perception of crime and highlighted a section of the report that referred to the ER Citizens Panel which showed that those on the panel were of the perception that crime was on the rise. Last year that perception was at 17% and this year the public's perception of crime being on the rise in ER has risen to 27%.

It was asked was there anything in the report that would deal with the perception of residents, given knife crime and incidents like the one in Rouken Glen Road. (Robbery at knife point - literally 100 metres from Ms Montagues family home)

A member of staff attempted to answer the question and then Ian McAlpine took control.

Still Photo (This is him and Kenny Hay having a laugh after he made his comments)

Ian McAlpine then proceeds to read the crime statistics from the report which indicate that every crime is down, and that ER has the lowest crime rate of mainland Scotland.

He said " Living in East Renfrewshire is a safe place to live". Which is an astonishing thing to say and he should not and will not be permitted to say such untruths without challenge.

Ian how about you say that to the 491 people who were victims of domestic abuse in East Renfrewshire in 2015-16, or the family of the murdered lady in Newton Mearns, and these figures do not include unreported incidents.

Also astonishingly he also says "I would like to commend the convenor for reducing crime in the area............."

Mary thanks him for his admirable comments and goes on to tell the rest of the councillors that, media is the problem with perception. You cannot switch on a television or open a newspaper but you are faced with 'perception'.

Even if crime has not occurred in your area or you have not been the victim of crime, we are still the safest local authority in Mainland Scotland.

Then she ends with "there is even a programme called crime watch".

(Click on the video - less than two minutes running time)

In our opinion this has been her mantra for many years, keep it quiet, dont tell the public, if you have to - play it down, or say big boys from Castlemilk did it and ran away, there are no neds in East Renfrewshire.

Now if you watch the webcast and look at Ian McAlpine and Kenny Hay, after Ian has praised Mary for stopping crime, they are giggling and laughing. Even when the camera swings round Jim Fletcher is giggling.

Poor Mary was obviously unaware of the hilarity, would it be because Ian was taking the Michael and everyone else got the joke, except Mary.

When she mention the Crime Watch program the room erupted in laughter, pity she did not mean it as a joke.

How dare they put on programs about crime.