WITH a comfortable 10-seat majority and holding well over half Lancashire County Council's 78 seats, there can be no dispute about the ruling Labour group's mandate to run the authority.

But does that, as its leader County Councillor Hazel Harding maintains, make it appropriate for the appointment for the post of chairman to come automatically from within the Labour group -- as has been the situation all throughout Labour's tenure of control since 1989?

For no matter what authority the party commands in terms of power, with it, surely, comes principle -- which in regard to the chairmanship of the county council, says that the post should be above politics .

It is a convention that applies across the country when it comes to the selection of the heads of local government bodies -- and for good reasons as well as for the sake of tradition.

To begin with, the debate of the authority's affairs needs to be presided over even-handedly by a neutral referee standing above the confrontational nature of party politics.

Then, in appointing a person to be the first citizen and the representative of ALL the people of the community governed by the authority, again the choice should be that of a non-political figure.

It may be that Lancashire's ruling group can claim that year after year these requirements have been fulfilled by Labour chairmen who have divested themselves of their political role during their terms of office.

Yet, surely, this continuum has also served to politicise the position, as the opposition parties claim as their challenge to Labour's selective selection is voted down.

Moreover, it has served to deprive long-serving members of other parties deserving recognition for their role as public representatives of being rewarded with the honour of the role of chairman.

But if Labour feels it has a mandate to act like this, it cannot call it magnanimous.