As “Red Ed” Miliband tries, in vain, to reposition his party as reformed and responsible, some brief snippets of news in the BT, taken together, show that his local councillors in Bury still betray Labour’s obsession with spin and tribal politics.

For example, at a recent public meeting Mike Connolly saw an opportunity to highlight the use of A Boards on Bury’s streets as a reason for more law: “I think we should have a policy on it,” he declared. Apparently disregarding the use of these boards by struggling local businesses, his utterance was classic Labour: a knee-jerk reaction to grab a headline, but with an inevitable commitment to spend some more of our money to implement yet another policy change.

Hardly surprising, though, when you consider Labour inroduced over 3000 new laws while in office — almost “a policy a day” — with all the massive public spending implications they involved, from which we are still suffering.

Mr Connolly also said how he was “astounded by the (consultation) reponse to the Plan for Change . . . it has been well received”.

Look at the scale of the response compared with the number of economically active residents in Bury: only 2.5 per cent responded. This is not democracy in action Mr Connolly and it is misleading to imply otherwise.

Derek Brooks Tottington