The LibDems are running Councillor Alison Hay in the Scottish Election 2011, a former Council Leader and Argyll and Bute’s standing representative at the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA).

The LibDem group has  seen its actions in the school closure affair result in a catastrophic loss of public support. and the political judgment of its candidate open to the most serious of questioning.

Political intelligence is in short supply in Argyll and Bute. What the LibDems did  this case in could not be a sharper example of that.

They have six councillors. The majority are competent, with Alison Hay among their number.

Before – and immediately before – the key meeting on 25th November, several of the LibDem six had confirmed to constituents and colleagues that they would oppose the proposals going to public consultation on the grounds of serious flaws they openly discussed.

Then, during that long day, the SNP walked out of power.

As any political party would do, the LibDems gratefully received Council Leader Dick Walsh’s invitation to them to join the Alliance of Independents in power. No one would have argued with that and many would have celebrated it. It’s what politics is about.

But with a stupendous lack of political nous, they were conned by Dock Walsh into an automatic acceptance that they  must support the closure proposals if they wanted to join a new coalition. The group leader, Councillor Ellen Morton, whom we have described as a street fighter, harangued two reluctant colleagues into changing their vote.

In the chamber, to the horror of the observing representatives of schools in their areas, Councillors Currie and Colville got to their feet and voted for proposals they had-  even in that meeting-  described as flawed, approving them nevertheless to go to statutory public consultation under the Schools (Consultation (Scotland) Act 2010.

These votes were greeted by involuntary gasps of shock.

To a man, all six LibDems voted for the proposals, Al Reay rushing to his feet, defending his vote with an astonishingly eager loudness.

No one will ever understand why on earth the LibDems did this. They were in command and control. The Alliance could not survive in power without their numerical presence in a new coalition and so were in no position to dictate conditions. All the LibDems had to say was: ‘We’ll join you and keep you in power but we will vote against these flawed proposals’.

But they sold out their schools, their communities and their political integrity – all completely unnecessarily.

Soon after that meeting the goody bags of paid senior posts were allocated amongst the members of the new coalition and the LibDems did remarkably well, obviously negotiating hard in their own interests.

It is difficult to describe just how catastrophically bad for them this decision and its management has been.

At a time when their party is at a very low level of national popularity because of its Westminster coalition with the Tories (which, in principle, we support and respect as an exemplar of good political management), the Argyll and Bute LibDems have replicated that unpopular relationship. The two Tory councillors joined with them in entering the new coalition.

What is electorally much worse – the LibDems have been seen and heard to betray their constituents – for personal and political gain.

So what are their chances?

We see the LibDems as profoundly damaged by their councilors’ actions in the school closures issue.

They changed their minds in favour of the proposals just as the weightiest evidence was gathering of their fundamentally flawed state. They did so in an utterly unnecessary gesture to go into power with the Alliance of Independents.  They could have had the power anyway.

They have fought resolutely to progress the proposals in defiance of the evidence both of their flaws and of their inability to deliver anything like the claimed cost savings.

They have been the most dishonest in refusing to admit any flaw in the proposals. They have, with the Alliance, pretended that the withdrawal of the proposals was not due to to any flaws in the proposals but to the shock discovery of the unexpectedly savage budget cut inflicted by the Scottish Government upon Argyll.

There is worse.

Potentially most damaging of all, it has now emerged that the members of the senior council delegation representing Argyll at a Leaders meeting of the Convention of Scottish Local Authorities (COSLA) on 19th November, were themselves directly and solely responsible for the additional cut to the Argyll budget.

This meeting took place before the budgets were finalised or known – so firstly it is dishonest to claim that the additional cut was a shock. They knew before anyone.

The Argyll delegation actually approved the introduction of an eccentric formula by COSLA which accounted for the additional £5.6 million budget cut for Argyll (in a total cut of £11.9 million). Then they agreed the disastrous budget for Argyll that this measure produced.

The usual delegation is Council Leader Dick Walsh, CEO Sally Loudon and Councillor Alison Hay, the council’s standing representative at COSLA. It would be unusual for any of these three to be absent from such a crucial meeting.We have  no reason to believe that Councillor Hay was absent but until the COSLA minutes are published, we cannot confirm that all three were present.

The only explanation for such an awful error is sheer inability to understand the issue and to do the sums – and unwillingness to admit it.

It is inconceivable that these senior operatives, including the present and former council leaders and the Chief Executive, could have realised the impact on the Argyll budget of the additional measure they were agreeing to – and then signed off their approval of the consequent budget whose unusually massive cut we must now all confront.

If Councillor Hay was present; if she did not record her reasoned objection to the financial measure COSLA proposed , on the grounds of the unwarranted financial penalty it imposed on Argyll and Bute; and if indeed she approved, by vote or by default,  the measure and the consequent budget for Argyll, there could be no weightier instance of culpable negligence.

Argyll will be crippled by this unnecessary loss and at a particularly dreadful local economic circumstances.