Apathy isn't the answer

The Tories are still in the Worthing Borough Council driving seat, and the Liberal Democrats are trying to get revenge for their defeat in 2004.

A gain of six seats from the Conservatives would ensure another change of rule at the Town Hall, although I wouldn't bet my house on the Lib Dems doing it this year, at least!

But Worthing's changing election fortunes during the last 20 years remind me of those epic North African campaigns between the Brits and the Germans in World War II, fighting back and forth along the coast.

In those days (unlike the Iraq imbroglio), you knew whom you were fighting, and a clearly-labelled opposition is also one of the factors on our local election scene.

It wasn't always so, however.

Worthing once had a long tradition of returning Tory councils, complete with all the paraphernalia of privileged aldermen, with a fair sprinkling of Ratepayers/Independent candidates.

The then Liberals didn't get much of a look-in.

It took Labour, however, to really start politicising things after the war ended.

In the glow of the new national Labour government, its local election candidates adopted the party label, and it did not take long for the Conservatives to follow suit.

One might say that many "Independents" came out of the ballot-box closet and tagged their hopes with the blue party label.

And the Liberals?

They belatedly got going on the same tack, and by the 1960s had established an opposition group on the council.

They achieved national fame by having Chris Sargent elected as the youngest councillor in the country, at the age of 21.

That was the minimum age for councillors in those days.

Things rather fell apart later that decade, however, with seats lost and the Ratepayers taking over as the main opposition.

There was a Liberal revival at the turn of the 80s, and party members became Lib Dems and eventually gained control for the first time in 1994/95.

Power has since switched between the two parties at varying intervals, but that ability to change the local scene has been eroded steadily by increasing government legislation and the fact that councils (in the south, at least) have been given less money to meet their commitments.

This situation is in part blamed for apathy at the polls.

Will voters turn out if they don't believe their ballot-box cross will make much difference, anyway, and that there are bound to be cuts in services whichever party is in power?

It's a pessimistic view, but local councillors must battle on to convince the electorate that they CAN make a worthwhile difference to people's lives; even if it means more co-operation between the political camps.

And in the meantime, the over-riding message to residents is use your vote '” or eventually you might lose it altogether.