Obama might have shown than a black man can become president but over here the most basic rungs of local government appear to be out of reach to most minority ethnic candidates.

Harriet Harman this week pointed out that only around 150 out of 19,000 councillors across England are minority ethnic women. This is actually a fall on two years ago when the figure stood at 164.

It means minority ethnic women make up less than one per cent of all local authority representatives.

Sure there are all sorts of reasons for this beyond racism (women of all backgrounds often have to cope with the demands of caring for home, family and career while men concentrate on the latter).

But it's still a pathetic figure and it doesn't bode well if we are looking for a minority ethnic woman to fill senior local government or central government roles.

While the rest of the country obsessed over the US elections, Parliament took its own momentous decision: it moved the date of next year’s local elections.

With local elections originally scheduled for 7 May 2009 and European elections already locked down for 4 June 2009, the government applied to move the former’s polling date so voters would not face the hassle of having to go to their polling station twice in one month. After all, if voters keep expressing their opinion, they might expect government to listen.

Was there an election yesterday or something?

Meanwhile in local government news, there's a bit of an argument brewing between lap-dancing clubs and councils and MPs. Jacqui Smith announced on Oct 9th that she will give councils new controls over strip clubs, probably by reclassifying them as sex encounter establishments.

The Lap Dancing Association (LDA), yes it exists and was formed in 2006, says that their opponents only have a moral argument and that you can't judge their legitimate industry by that measure. They marched, possibly in stilletos, to No10 to hand in a petition signed by nearly 3,000 people.

There are now around 300 strip clubs in Britain. Where should strip clubs go if there's local demand? I wouldn't want one in my backyard - are any councillors willing to speak out in favour of them?

Last week there was quite a detailed discussion in the school playground between parents on how accurate the America polls might be.

Who knew that the Bradley effect could become common currency rather than a psephological speciality?

We'll find out over the next 24 hours (providing there is no re-run of 2000). I’ve invited parents to drop in on the way to and from school on Wednesday morning to have a cookie or bagel and watch the fnial stages of the Presidential election.

Beyond the natural interest of this fascinating race should people in this little Wiltshire village really care?

Actually, it’s the primary school mums and dads who are most likely to be affected.

Half of the children at the village school are from service families. My daughter is used to making friends with children who stay for a year and then suddenly leave as their father is posted elsewhere.

And of course significant numbers have served or are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Whichever of the candidates wins will have an impact on Britain’s role in those countries which will percolate down to our community.

One aspect of having so many service families is that it can play havoc with school budgets.

Every January there is a count of pupil numbers and based on that the school gets its funding. However, the MoD might move significant numbers of personnel around any time.

It could be good for the school if its numbers drop and so it has more funds per head. Or it could work the other way.

If you sign up for the forces then the unexpected is what, well, you expect. However it’s hardly an ideal way for a school to operate when its budget plans are subject to such an arbitrary snapshot.

Should we devise a different forumla for schools with a high proportion of service children?

Donald Trump, the distinctively coiffured US property magnate has been successful in his quest to get his £1bn gold resort approved in Aberdeenshire. These mega golf developments are always enormous on scale, but also potentially offer lots of jobs, 6,000 in this case. Trump will build - breathe in - two 18-hole golf courses with associated clubhouse, starter's hut, caddy shack, short-game practice area and driving range, together with a 450-bedroom hotel with conference centre and spa (do golfers ever stay in YMCAs?), 950 holiday apartments in four blocks, 36 golf villas, 500 houses for sale, accommodation for 400 staff and a new access onto the A90 trunk road, with ancillary developments. Obviously this has no mean environmental impact - the development will take up 1400 acres of North Aberdeenshire coast involving, in the words of the RSPB, the "destruction of a dune system with its precious system".

Aberdeenshire Council rejected the plan initially in November 2007, but it was a very tight vote on the infrastructure committee, 7-7 until the chairman cast the deciding vote against (he's now lost his job). This then caused the leadership of Aberdeen City Council to write a letter to every Shire councillor, urging them to re-think.

The ruling SNP agreed, in fact they were massively in support, imagine how £1bn investment looks on the balance sheets. After a public local enquiry, the infrastructure committee and other opponents have found themselves well and truly "trumped". Now the possible economic benefits to a region that, while oil-wealthy for the moment, also struggles to develop due to its remoteness, could be enormous. But is the loss of and disruption to some of what the Scottish Wildlife Trust call "one of the top five dune habitats in Britain" a price worth paying? Alex Salmond believes so saying: "The economic and social benefits for the North East of Scotland substantially outweigh any environmental impact".

Let's hope there's still a market for it hey? But more seriously - where do you balance the environment against business development as a council? While developments the size of Trump's are not common, the issue is. Just Google news search council and green belt as I've just done and we've got, Edinburgh with a potential £7.5bn worth of development on green-belt land, Norfolk wondering where to fit 74,700 extra homes over the next 18 years and South Buckinghamshire District Council debating whether to approve a new 44-hectare film set for Pinewood Studios to give a few examples.

Our recent debate on the green belt in issue 3 caused a stir and this issue's not going to go away. How do you judge, especially in the face of huge money and potential job creation, to say yes or no to new development?