IT IS ROUTINE for the Church to lobby MPs and peers with its concerns about upcoming legislation. But given that “all politics is local”, as the Americans would say, attention is now being given to forging links with local authorities. To this end, Ian Potts, a Conservative councillor in Ealing, west London, has joined the executive board of the Catholic Union – and been charged with compiling a list of Catholic local councillors across England and Wales. Mr Potts told us that councillors represent “one of the best ways for the Church to influence the policies of political parties”. He estimates that there are 2,000 Catholic councillors in the country; he himself knows of at least 78. “The hope is to get a group together to deal with politics at the gr