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LAST month, when the notice of the impending first elections to the new Durham County Council was published, we expressed the hope that new faces would come forward to take the county into its unitary future.

A closer examination of the nominated candidates shows that new faces are putting themselves forward.

True, the old guard is also well represented, some of them really very old indeed, but that was to be expected and, indeed, welcomed. The dynamism of youth needs to be blended with the experience of long service. The issue is balance.

The Bishop of Durham's early intervention in the election campaign highlighted the surprising number of British National Party candidates standing.

It is a similar story in Harrogate Borough where the appeal of a BNP candidate in a seat like Kirkby Malzeard is hard to fathom. While County Durham and North Yorkshire have experienced some inward migration, it has been nothing like the scale elsewhere in Britain. Which begs the Bishop's question: is there a political vacuum and, if so, why have the established political parties not filled it?

A vacuum it may not be, but there has certainly been a political complacency in the two counties in recent times, brought about by years of Labour and Conservative dominance in Durham and North Yorkshire respectively.

Only in Durham City, Ripon, and Harrogate town has that dominance been challenged, by the Liberal Democrats.

The big issues to be settled on May 1 are whether they can break out of their urban strongholds and whether the Conservatives can make a bigger impression in Harrogate on the back of their strong showing nationally.

Hopefully, the British National Party will find itself sidelined.

12:54pm Friday 25th April 2008

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