Vicky Carr is a journalist turned writer who grew up in Harrogate and returned in her late 20s to raise her family here. Find her on Instagram @vickycarrwrites.

Being a local politician can be an utterly thankless task.

Before you even become one, you expose yourself to the judgement of the public, who can be the most irrational of critics.

Once elected, you spend time in interminable meetings, being told the decisions you want to make can’t be made because, in fact, you don’t really have any powers, and the council officers have instructed you on the decision you must make anyway. Of course, the public will not like it if you just go along with that.

If you go against officers’ advice, especially on something like planning, there’s a high likelihood the council will face a legal challenge and, without good policy grounds for your decision, will lose – incurring significant costs. The public won’t like that either.

When you’re not in meetings, you’re wading through a swamp of communication from your constituents and various others who think you may be able to help them. Those emails and phone calls undoubtedly outline problems ranging from deluded to deranged, yet you must respond to each one as if the sender is entirely sane.

Then every four years, you face losing your job, often for reasons completely unrelated to your own competence. The work of your local colleagues may be used to decide your fate – or, more likely, the actions of some people in London who you’ve never met in your life.

And the reward for all this?

Financially, if you work full-time hours as a North Yorkshire councillor, it is equivalent to less than minimum wage. If you sit on a parish council, like Harrogate Town Council or Ripon City Council, you get the grand total of absolutely nothing for the time you spend representing your community.

And to add insult to injury, people continually assume you’re earning a fortune, as well as taking backhanders from rich, influential individuals hoping to sway your votes – despite the lack of any evidence.

Anyone who is willing to submit themselves to all of the above has automatically earned a degree of sympathy from me.

That being said, local politicians appear to have been doing their level best to extinguish any flame of solidarity of late.

One long-standing North Yorkshire councillor recently accused Harrogate Town Council of “whingeing” rather than working for their area, which came hot on the heels of an accusation by another that the town council was “childish” and its actions were a “political stunt”.

This was prompted by HTC passing a motion of no confidence in North Yorkshire Council, saying Harrogate’s facilities were “crumbling” because of “bureaucratic apathy”. The council has yet to apply to take on responsibility for any of said facilities, however, despite being invited to do so.

It does rather feel like these disagreements are more related to the fact that North Yorkshire is Conservative-run and Harrogate is Lib Dem-controlled, than to public service. If both councils were run by the same party, it’s hard to imagine there would be any of this kind of performance.

There has been no love lost between the two parties in Harrogate for many years, and petty squabbling like this serves only to deepen the rifts between them. To what end? Who benefits from this tiresome slanging match?

In fact, who even cares about it? I certainly don’t. Outside the party members themselves, I think you’d struggle to find a single person in North Yorkshire who thinks this is a valuable use of time.

It wouldn’t be tolerated in a workplace and it shouldn’t be tolerated in public office.

Frankly, it’s about time they all grew up and recognised what the public wants: councillors who will act with integrity, in the interests of their communities, and work hard to make their areas better.

That does not, in my view, include bitter sniping from the political battlements.

My manifesto

In fact, if I ran the world (and all being well, one day I will), party politics would be banned in local government.

Everyone who wanted to stand would do so as an independent, based on their life experience and knowledge of their area. Perhaps they would have particular issues they want to sort out if elected – if others feel strongly too, they’ll do well at the ballot box.

Meanwhile, the leader would be chosen by a vote among councillors – again, no whips to sway the votes, so it would be done on merit. The same goes for the cabinet: people could put themselves forward, or the leader could nominate candidates, but the final say would fall to those elected by the public.

There would be no alliances, no grouping, no deals to be done. Instead, each councillor could vote in line with their conscience and what the residents of their division wanted.

Not only would it mean people were better represented, it would also put an end to the childish bickering between councillors of opposing parties. The collective wisdom would prevail, rather than the interests of the largest group.

And, of course, it would prevent councillors from being elected as a member of one party, only to defect to another part way through their term, without recourse to the electorate for approval.

Even better, we’d no longer be spammed by party propaganda through the letterbox, extolling the virtues of whomever their local candidate is and denigrating all others, without feeling the need to back any of this up with facts. Councillors would stand and fall on their own records, not on the power of the marketing team at party HQ.

If you’re still unconvinced, let me make one final argument: it would mean you never have to read the infuriating phrase “Labour – can’t win here!” on political leaflets ever again. Actually, maybe I should have led with that.

So there we are. That’s my manifesto for better local government. Who’s with me?