Most of us will have suffered buyer’s remorse at one time or another, from a bad choice in a holiday restaurant to an awful car. The electric thing on our driveway which drains the credit card if it’s recharged anywhere except home being a perfect example.

And there are a lot of remorseful buyers about right now, 3,106,789 of them to be exact, if a new survey from pollsters Freshwater Strategy is accurate ─ the number of people who now regret voting Labour a year ago, 32 per cent of the 9,708,716 total. And in Edinburgh City Chambers there is a similar feeling amongst those city councillors who voted for the continuation of Labour’s administration after the suspension of former leader Cammy Day at the end of last year, over now dropped sexual harassment allegations.

The dissatisfaction stems from the quality of the new civic leadership. To my mind, Portobello councillor Jane Meagher, only elected three years ago and now 73, doesn’t seem entirely happy in the job. Her plaintive monologues at council meetings do nothing to dispel my notion that she would rather be doing anything than answering for a major local authority with a billion-pound budget and........

© Herald Scotland