The fact that Labour last night lost overall control of Bradford Council will not have come as a great surprise to watchers of local politics.

It was entirely predictable that three years into a national administration local voters would register their reservations about its performance by voting against the same party in power in their own area.

Added to that in Bradford, of course, are some very controversial local issues, particularly the running of schools and their reorganisation, which has undoubtedly been handled badly. But the reorganisation remains a necessary evil and the urgently-needed reversal of Bradford's appalling record on schools performance will only be achieved through drastic measures, such as the privatisation of education provision.

It is important now that a consensus emerges to allow this vitally important issue to continue to be progressed and not lost in a mire of party political in-fighting.

The hung Council will be the ultimate test of the authority's new structure, which lends itself to consensus politics. The three main parties need to find a way of working together so that Bradford can move forward. There should be no place for entrenched positions based on dogma. That is how real local democracy should operate.

The structure of the Council should give it a chance to work for the good of Bradford through consensus and common sense, dealing with the issues one by one on their merits. It will stand its best chance of achieving this if the parties resist the temptation to form rigid political alliances. It is important to avoid, say, a Labour/Lib Dem alliance or a Tory/Lib Dem pact in which only two parties arrive at a consensus (which would inevitably favour the larger of them), plunging councillors back into fruitless petty politics.

Councillors have a golden opportunity now to show that they can work together for the good of the district, creating a brighter future in which all shades of opinion are taken into account.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.