Politics has never been a fair business but it has always struck me as one of the great injustices that in local elections people cast their vote on the basis of national politics rather than what’s going on in the Town Hall at Wallsend or the work carried out by their own local councillor.

As a result we often have good, hard working local councillors paying the price for the actions of national politicians down in Westminster.  We had an example of this in North Tyneside last Thursday when Ray Glindon, who was an excellent councillor, lost his seat in Battle Hill.  This was a result that had more to do with the release of foreign prisoners than with local politics.

I do hope that one day we’ll get to a situation when council elections are a verdict on local candidates and not the national situation.

Incidentally, on the issue of the release of foreign prisoners am I alone in thinking that if someone wants to seek political asylum in our country then the least we can expect from them is that they abide by our laws?  In my view a failure to do so should not be tolerated and they should be returned back to their own country.  This is certainly the message I’ll be giving to the new Home Secretary, John Reid.