Councillor Connolly “punches the air” and gleefully announces his new team as if he has a mandate for council control, rather than a sham leadership effectively decided on the “toss of a coin”!

Still, every new political appointee deserves a chance to deliver on their promises but, at a time when every penny of council tax income must achieve value for money, Cllr Connolly and his team’s performance will justifiably attract forensic scrutiny!

Labour still parade their credentials as the only party who will look after the poor (no doubt they will continue to do so), but the facts show that, despite spending £1.5 billion of tax payers’ money in the last five years on benefits that they were convinced should have helped the poor, the levels of poverty haven’t changed and inequality in incomes is now the highest it has ever been.

Another stark truth that recent council elections show how it resonates with the public is that we must support the private sector to generate the wealth that will earn our living in the world. Yet recent surveys clearly show that workers in the public sector receive more than 40 per cent extra in pay and pension benefits than their counterparts doing the same work in the private sector.

Even our cherished NHS has suffered from Labour waste to the tune of £6.4 billion: remember Blair’s flagship health record IT project? Well after 10 years only four per cent of patient records systems have been installed in the North.

The uncomfortable fact for Mr Connolly’s new team now is that the public want them to help tackle, locally, the pressing issues outlined above, however important “tackling parking charges, restoring civic suites and providing youth centres” is.

Much of the solution lies in using the full potential of competitive forces in delivering services, otherwise why do the public happily embrace buying, say, holidays, electronic goods and car insurance on the internet. We shall be watching your team Mr Connolly to ensure that you have learnt these lessons!

Derek Brooks Tottington