IT often seems that anything that happens in social administration has to be accompanied by a row between the two major parties.

Even the effect of good news, such as the half-a-million pounds which is due to be spent on the town centre of Ilkley in the next two years, has led to a bust-up between the major factions on Bradford Council.

Lets face it, it's about time Ilkley had some money spent on it even if it has had to wait at the back of queue behind Bradford, Shipley, Bingley and Keighley for an allocation of town centre cash.

But when they attended a meeting to discuss the issue, Bradford councillors could not resist the temptation to back bite. Labour accused the Tories of sneaking extra cash into the budget without telling anybody just to bolster their chances at the polls and the Tories have accused the Labour leadership of trying to prevent investment in Ilkley.

There has even been an attempt to drag the town's MP, Ann Cryer, into the row despite the fact it has nothing to do with her.

Her rival at the next General Election, Councillor Simon Cook (Con, Bingley Rural) has called on Mrs Cryer to publicly denounce Bradford's Labour councillors.

We seem to have developed a culture of government, both local and national, in which effective and efficient administration has been swept aside by the petulant squabbling of politicians who refuse to consider the glaringly obvious fact that co-operation leads to progress and constant conflict gets us nowhere.

It's about time they concentrated on the well-being of the people whom they were elected to represent and lost the obsession for scoring points off their playground rivals.