POLITICS can be a bloodthirsty business. The knives are usually out at Westminster as MPs line up to plunge them into a luckless colleague's back.

New Labour's heavyweight contest between Blair and Brown is into its sixth bruising year. By contrast the Tories now appear united, but only days ago they were plotting to destroy their leader.

So it was refreshing to witness a certain amount of cross-party consensus at City of York Council last night.

Councillors were focused on some of the key concerns of York people. The call for a ban on the public sale of devastatingly loud fireworks will be supported by every citizen whose ears are still ringing from the nightly barrage of explosions these last few weeks.

Some semblance of peace has returned. But the after-effects are still with us, in terms of wrecked phone boxes and shattered nerves.

With Christmas and New Year on the horizon, we fear more of the same: late-night detonations which one resident compared to the 1942 air raid on York. There appears little the council can do other than urge MPs to act. Councillors of all shades backed that call.

The unanimous support for another motion, deploring the attempted incursion into York of the extreme-right British National Party, was another welcome sign of politicians working together for the greater good.

However, the spirit of co-operation broke down when Labour called for residents to take a stand against anti-social yobs. Although Liberal Democrat council leader Steve Galloway has made a similar call himself, the two sides were unable to unite behind the precise policies to tackle this growing problem.

Complete agreement on everything just wouldn't be politics. But councillors should go the extra mile in a united attempt to tackle this, the most concerning issue of them all.

Updated: 10:33 Wednesday, November 12, 2003