Did he jump or was he pushed?

SNP Councillor Chris Osborne has decided not to seek selection by his party for next year's Council elections.

The question is: did he jump or was he pushed?

It is a bit strange that in his statement Chris did not give a reason for why he was not standing again.

Rumours have been rife for months now that all was not well in the SNP camp. The party hierarchy in Edinburgh are known to have been unhappy with the performance of the local SNP Group. I understand that SNP Business Manager - and former leader of Renfrewshire Council -  Derek MacKay MSP was brought in to sort them out. It has been an open secret within the Council that all of the SNP Councillors - with the exception of former Leader Keith Brooks - were fighting for their political lives.

Big Keith - as he is affectionately known - decided a while ago that he would not be standing again and announced this to the Council.

There has been a question mark over the future of Ward 2 Councillor Jim Grieve for some time now as he has attended very few meetings in the past two years due to illness, although I am told that Jim is still keen to stand again. It remains to be seen if the party will allow this.

Chris Osborne's 'decision' not to stand comes shortly after he was carpeted for initially questioning the SNP Government's decision to cut funding to Riverside Inverclyde (he is a Board member of RI). He was also believed to be looking to switch from ward 3 to the safer ward 2 but apparently there was resistance within the party to this.

The SNP have not yet announced their candidates for next year. It looks like another former Group Leader, Jim MacLeod, will be standing again in ward 1. Jim had apparently hoped to run as a 'dream team' with his wife Sylvia but she failed to get through the selection process.

Current SNP Group Leader (they have had three in three years) Innes Nelson is believed to be standing again, although there are indications that he was hoping to switch from ward 6 to ward 4.

I was sorry to hear that Chris won't be standing again, not least because it is good to have someone younger than me in the Council.

Mind you I was a bit disappointed in Chris' contribution to the Council. Rather than take the sensible approach of building bridges with the Labour Group he decided to throw his lot in with the Lib Dems, a very short-sighted decision since the Lib Dems are yesterday's men. Alan Blair is not exactly the best role model for a young impressionable Councillor!

In his statement Chris tells us that the SNP is putting together an excellent team of candidates for next year's elections. The people of Inverclyde can sleep easy then - not!