'Sometimes party politics is not the best route'

Independent Falkirk councillor Laura Murtagh, who represents the Carse, Kinnaird and Tryst ward, tells Margaret Taylor why she quit the SNP despite working for an SNP MSP and how her favourite building is a pineapple.

Describe the area you represent in one sentence My ward is a wonderful mix of urban communities, historic villages and rural areas with some stunning countryside, the best community football club in Scotland – Stenhousemuir – and a very special building: The Pineapple.  

How long have you lived there? I’m in denial about this right now because we moved here when I was six months pregnant and we have just celebrated my oldest’s 18th birthday, but 18 years.

Where did you live before? I’m from a mixture of Airdrie and Provence in France. My mum is from Provence, and I spent a lot of happy time during my childhood there. It’s a beautiful place and it’s definitely somewhere I call home as well.

Tell us something we won’t know about your local area I live in Airth and it’s one of the few places in Scotland with two market crosses.

Who is the best-known person from your area? It’s more a place full of community characters than individuals and our reach is really wide. When I was in a hotel in Rome there was soap from the Scottish Fine Soaps Company; in an Airbnb I visited the bathroom was from Carron Bathrooms; Stenhousemuir FC has a Norway supporters club. We have a world-wide brand.

What challenges are unique to your particular part of the country? Many people forget that this area is coastal, and flooding is an issue we just can’t ignore. There are villages in my ward that can get flooded out and it can look like the sea is right outside my window sometimes. I spend a lot of time in villages coming up with specific solutions for those flooding incidents. It doesn’t happen often, but once in 200-year events are no longer once in 200-year events. 

What made you stand for election? I was always fighting and campaigning for something when I was younger, usually on social justice or environmental issues, even before I knew what those words meant. I was brought up on a council estate in Lanarkshire that was dominated by Thatcher and Thatcher’s legacy. As I reached adulthood there was the Tony Blair landslide, but then when I went to university I felt there was a betrayal of those socialist goals around things like tuition fees and student grants and I realised something different needed to happen, so I joined the SNP. When my kids got older I thought I’d get back into politics.

When you were first elected to Falkirk Council you were in the SNP but now you’re an independent – why did you leave the party? I left just over a year ago and it was for a variety of reasons, but in my heart I do feel that local politics is better done in an independent way. Sometimes party politics is not the best route. It makes local decision-making difficult. 

You work as a communications and case worker for SNP MSP Michelle Thomson – did that make it difficult to leave the party? Like anyone who works for an MSP, it’s not a political role. I’m not there to advise on party politics but to serve the public and help people. A lot of people have asked me that, but I think it’s a good idea for councillors to be independent and Michelle has been very supportive as an employer. 

What’s the one thing Holyrood politicians could do that would be of greatest benefit to the area you represent? In general, local government needs reform. I feel there’s a gap in truly respecting and understanding the variety of what local government does. There are lots of good intentions and there have been big initiatives like the Verity House Agreement, but what happened with the council tax freeze was the opposite of what the Verity House Agreement was meant to bring in. Hopefully seeing the aftermath of that will encourage better dialogue – we can only have so many false starts. There’s a groundswell of people who want reform, but reform is difficult to achieve.

What’s the best bit about living where you do? I love the rural landscape and the way we are connected to other places. If I go for a walk I can pass through four local authorities in one wander – Fife, Clackmannanshire, Stirling and back to Falkirk. It’s a really interconnected place. 

Is there a particular word you love using that only people in your part of the country would recognise? One thing I’ve never heard anywhere else is the habit of putting ‘eh’ at the start and the end of a sentence to ask a question, like a parenthesis. My kids might say “eh, mum, that’s not something I actually like though, eh?” I wouldn’t say I love it, but it is local.  

If you could live anywhere else, where would it be? That’s tough because I’m unapologetic about the view that people can belong to more than one place. I adore Scotland but I’m also very proud to be French and there are days when I’d love to be home there. It would probably be somewhere in Provence, beside the sea, with a mountain at my back.