THE first thing I must do this week is offer huge congratulations to my wife Robina on becoming the first-ever Labour councillor for our home ward, Southwick Green, situated around the entrance to Shoreham Port on the West Sussex coast.

She increased the vote share by 20 per cent and made the local TV news — you should have seen the faces of the Tories at the count when they lost a seat considered such a shoe-in they have never even bothered to canvass there. I was moved to verse:

When once, in misty moments before time,
Huge dinosaurs trod heavy on the earth:
When three wise pilgrims travelled from
the East
Inspired by tidings of a virgin birth:
When Shakespeare cried “Once more unto the breach!”
And Dickens, nervous, penned his first short story:
When Bobby raised the cup in ’66
In that Cup Final, our home ward was Tory.
Things will not be as they have always been.
My wife Robina has won Southwick Green!