I’M not a fan of coalitions. But if the results of the recent General Election had been different there might have been a Labour/Lib Dem coalition.

And, in the event, there were active negotiations between our two parties, even though I for one thought they would get nowhere because the numbers were stacked against us.

The purpose of politics is that those elected then seek power, in order to put their policies and principles into action.

That’s entirely honourable.

So far as the Blackburn with Darwen Conservative/Lib Dem coalition – which lost office on Tuesday evening – is concerned, it was my duty to work with the two Conservative leaders of the Council – Colin Rigby, and Mike Lee.

I pay tribute to them for the way they put aside any party differences to work with me for the good of the borough.

But coalitions are always second best.

One of the reasons I have always argued against proportional representation is that it would lead to near-permanent coalition government.

You’d vote for one party, in the belief that if enough others did there’ll be a government of your choosing, only to find the winners were the losers, the losers were the winners, with the smallest parties sometimes permanently in power.

Or – if a truly awful system of PR were chosen, as for example the Israelis use, you’d end up with continuous instability, where the small parties on the extremes were often able to call the shots.

The manifestos of political parties are fundamental to our democracy.

They amount to a contract with the electorate.

They should illuminate both the values of the parties and their key policies.

But, with coalitions,major sections of the pre-election manifestos are often dumped in the post-election horse trading. Many electors may be forgiven for thinking that they’d been taken for a huge ride.

That, I am sure, is the feeling of many in our borough who voted Lib Dem in local elections.

That’s reflected nationally in the collapse of Lib Dem support, in the opinion polls and in local by-elections.

Their problem is now fundamental.

For all the years that we were in Government, and before that the Conservatives, Liberal Democrats have demanded more public spending.

They justified their demands by reference to their values.

In contrast, for three years as the junior partner in a Conservative-led coalition in the borough, their main role was simply to make up the numbers when voting.

The same is now happening on a national scale, where Nick Clegg and his colleagues show all the passion of the convert for huge cuts.

The price they will pay for this is annihilation at the polls.

It’s not going to be easy for the Labour group now – thankfully – in control of the council.

But I am confident in all the difficult decisions they have to make, the group will not be abandoning their values, nor the key policies on which the councillors were elected.