Yesterday I was canvassing on Cardiff Avenue, Montgomery Avenue, Tenby Road and Swansea Avenue. One of the shocks was the attitude of Labour councillors before 2004.

I heard two separate stories about councillors being asked to help tenants who wanted to buy their own home and both being refused help, once by Jim Powell and once by Harold Mangar. When it was pointed out to Harold Mangar that he owned his own home he simply retorted “I’ve worked hard for what I’ve got”. The implication being that Maidenhall residents didn’t. The typical Labour response of “it’s good enough for me, but not for thee” is exactly why the ward I live in should never be a one party state again.

I don’t think that currently people would be met with the same patronising attitude now, but I have no illusions that this is due to fear rather than middle class absentee councillors suddenly putting their socialist principles behind their constituents wishes.

Steve Flood would never win a councillor of the year prize for his work in Bridge, but his election was like an electric shock here. Councillors realised that they had to work to keep the ward and issues that affected Bridge could no longer be ignored by the council as they were by the Labour group in the 1980s and 1990s.