DON'T the political chiefs at Lancashire County Council know when they are licked?

For off they go again, flogging a dead horse, trying to stop Blackburn and Blackpool becoming independent local authorities, free from County Hall's control.

They have found a loophole through which they believe they might force the government to rethink the whole issue of the two towns being granted "self-rule" unitary status.

They have come up with this just as parliament prepares to put the final stamp on the switch and more than three years after the Local Government Commission began its task of twice considering the change.

And County Council leader Louise Ellman vows to go to court if Lancashire is refused such a hearing - though the County Council's expensive efforts to prevent the Blackburn and Blackpool breakaway has previously come a cropper there.

Mrs Ellman is forever warning the people of Lancashire how much extra the granting of unitary status will cost local taxpayers.

But will she itemise how much these futile and pathetic attempts to prevent it are costing them?

We ask this particularly as they seem to have less to do with representing the interests of the people and more to do with preserving a political power base that ego, rather than good government, seems to require to remain as big as possible.

Pack it in, Louise.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.