It's still a long way from port, but it seems that Bradford's rudderless ship could at last be being blown towards home.

It might seem very strange to the average resident that a city and district the size of Bradford can be allowed to drift aimlessly without a captain at the wheel for so long. It's now two weeks since the local elections and in that time Bradford has bobbed about in the political doldrums while the parties that make up the newly-hung council squabble among themselves over who should take the wheel.

Now it seems that a mutinous alliance of sorts has emerged between the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats with the single-minded goal of ousting Labour leader Ian Greenwood - although we will have to wait until the Council's annual meeting on Tuesday for that to be officially confirmed.

But what happens then? A vision of two helmsmen trying to drag either side of the wheel in opposite directions looms. A cynic might say that by default that might keep the ship going roughly straight ahead.

However, with Labour's threat of withdrawing co-operation there is a strong possibility that the sails will remain furled and the ship won't go anywhere except be blown around at the mercy of the wind and the seas.

The danger is that the vessel, along with genuine local democracy, could founder on the rocks and sink without trace.

One thing is for sure, the coming weeks and months will be a voyage of discovery.

Converted for the new archive on 30 June 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.