IF HOME Secretary Michael Howard is to fulfil his duty as the nation's justice minister, he must heed Lancashire's plea today for fair play over the funding of police cover at party conferences.

For, yet again, the county's taxpayers will be picking up the bill when Labour holds its annual gathering in Blackpool in the autumn, just as they did when the Tories came last year.

And because of the the way the conference rota works, the county's police force - unlike any other - is responsible for the safety from terrorist threat of thousands of delegates and senior politicians every year at Blackpool.

But it is the people of Lancashire who pay for their security at around £900,000 a time.

That's far from fair when, by their very nature, these are national events of not just a party political stamp, but a parliamentary and governmental one also. As such, the bill for policing the Blackpool conferences should be picked up nationally - or, at least, there should be a significant contribution from government funds towards the extra costs Lancashire experiences.

And that case is all the more relevant now following the ending of the IRA ceasefire.

For, as we hear from the county's police chief Pauline Clare, that fact means that security at this year's Labour conference will have to be as tight as it was for last year's gathering by the in-government Conservatives.

But the bill for the policing will be just as big and may be even greater.

The trouble is, however, there is no scope for the extra costs in the police budget - and the people of Lancashire stand to suffer both financially and in cutbacks in everyday policing.

And, to rub salt in the wound, we are told that Conservative-controlled Dorset will get government help with the cost of policing the Tory conference at Bournemouth this year.

Fair? Of course not.

So, come on, Mr Howard, be fair at last to Lancashire too.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.