IT always makes me smile…or maybe grimace… when readers decide with great confidence what the political persuasion of The Chronicle is.

Over the years we have been staunchly Conservative, most definitely Labour, without a doubt Lib Dem and inherently Plaid Cymru. 

I think we’ve just about managed to avoid being Monster Raving Loony Party mouthpiece, although I have had the odd missive aimed in my direction, which has just about suggested that, or at least used most of those words.

I always thought that it was a uniquely Abergavenny trait and then I moved to a number of other papers and discovered that it’s exactly the same wherever you go.

“The Labour Party never gets a look in with the Observer,” I was told when I took on Tenby. “Your Green bias is showing,” I was warned recently in the Forest of Dean where we dared to put a story about the Green-led local authority on the front page… and then we had a pre-election wrap from the Labour Party in Monmouth which truly set pulses racing.

With my Green bias showing in the Forest, my blue tint shining through in Aber, my red tinge in Monmouth and goodness knows what in Ross-on-Wye I’m beginning to feel like a veritable political rainbow…which strangely enough is exactly what I think a local paper should be.

In my few decades as an editor and even more years as a reporter I have met a whole host of politicians of all political shades.

Some I have liked very much. Others I have not. But all I hope, have been treated with respect and allowed to air their views in the pages of the papers for which I have been responsible.

As I was being sarcastically asked on social media if I would be affording our new Labour MP the courtesy of a column in the paper, I was processing the copy ready for publication, having already spoken to Catherine Fookes and agreed her weekly submission.

Quite a while ago I met with the leader of MCC Cllr Mary Ann Brocklesby and she asked why the Conservative party had two political columns in the Chronicle and the Labour Party only  one and I explained that we had a Tory MP and a Tory MS and a Labour council leader.

“So we need to win more,” she laughed.

This month the Labour Party has done just that and I look forward to working with Mrs Fookes and meeting regularly with her in the same way I’ve met with David Davies in the past and would have met with the Monster Raving Loony MP had they won!

At the count earlier this week I was impressed and grateful that she sought out the local press and offered us the chance to kick off her first press conference as an MP. Mr Davies on the other hand thanked all the national journalists in Wales with not a mention of the local papers who served his area and who had faithfully given him publicity week after week for 25 years.

What’s that old saying about looking after the pennies?