SO the red rosette triumphed yet again in Leigh's big night of democratic participation last Thursday. Congratulations to Andy Burnham on becoming the fifth Labour MP for Leigh. If he delivers on a quarter of the promises he has made during the 12 months he has been in this constituency, then good times are ahead for our town.

Away from the spin however, I think we need to examine what we, the people of Leigh, Atherton, Golborne and Hindley, have gained in the past for our undivided loyalty to the socialist cause. The answer is not much.

The truth of the matter is that, paradoxically, we actually suffer because of our loyalty, due to the fact that we are a forgone conclusion before the votes are counted, and therefore by definition in no need of electoral bribes. You can be pretty sure that not many people from Leigh are involved in the party's focus groups to ascertain what the handful of people in marginal constituencies who decide general elections want from this Labour Government.

The result is that the standard spending assessment for this town (a formula which calculates the grant from central to local government, making up about 80 per cent of the money local councils get to spend on local services) is consistently one of the lowest in Greater Manchester, despite the fact that many parts of this constituency have some of the worst deprivation indicators as any town in the country.

Of course, money is now gradually coming to our schools and hospitals after the two-year freeze on public spending in the initial period of the last government. However, I think it would be interesting to examine the small print that comes with this money.

When Tony Blair speaks about this being a radical second-term government, I for one believe him.

But reading the manifesto, it will be the sort of radicalism that has attracted Shaun Woodward to the Labour party, not the sort of devotees this party expected to tackle the wide gaps in equality that exist in our society.

The fact is that he intends to push privatisation and private finance initiatives into the public sector in ways that even Margaret Thatcher balked at. For him, the only ideological debates that matter any more is whether outcomes in the form of narrow, inconsequential performance indicators improve, not how and who delivers the service.

Consequently, private health and educational companies from America are waiting in the wings for the green light to take over our public services, making huge profits in the bargain, as debates about the public good are marginalised.

What all this means for the many of you out there who are not only consumers of public services, but also deliver these services often under very difficult circumstances, is difficult to say. It does seem though that when you look at the job shedding and attacks on conditions of service that have accompanied privatisations in the past, then it is no wonder the public sector unions are nervous.

My warning to health service workers, teachers, local government employees and a whole host of public sector workers is to begin to ask yourselves real questions about what all this means for your pay and conditions.

As for Labour politicians at national and local level, well I think they will need to have a real debate in their heads in the coming years about why they actually joined the Labour party and put themselves up for office. How many of them actually stand up to be counted when it comes to a choice between the working people of this town and big business? Well, time will tell.

Labour Cllr Peter Turner

Hindley Green Ward