THE Hampshire Chronicle has been and always will be politically neutral.

However, it is a sad day that the last two Labour members lost their seats on the city council at the polls last week.

Janet Berry and Clive Gosling were victims of the reorganisation of boundaries, with the reduction in size of the authority from 57 to 45 members. That revamp saw the disappearance of their St John and All Saints ward that covered Highcliffe and Winnall.

The wiping out of Labour does matter: there are now only two groups on the council and thus less opportunity for the vital scrutiny of policy and decisions. The lack of adequate scrutiny was a key finding of the Claer Lloyd Jones report into the causes of the Silver Hill debacle.

Most city councillors, whether Tory or Lib Dem, will disagree with this view but they are motivated by their own vested interests rather than the wider benefit.

The perhaps-permanent eclipse of Labour also makes it less likely that the discredited Cabinet system itself will be replaced by the transparent committee system.

The emergence of the Winchester Independents has, along with the Greens, split the anti-Tory vote.

It is an irony that the emergence of the independents with the laudable intention of giving another voice on the city council has actually helped to reduce the number of voices.