John Elledge is keen on the idea. I am not. This is an extra layer of government we simply do not need. We have enough already. Much like the elected police commissioners. Didn’t need them and still don’t. This is not America.
The French system of local government works well and, yes, they have elected mayors. However, the electorate tends to be fairly small and you can knock on the mayor’s door and ask him to fix a burst water main and it will happen and quickly. So my experience of an elected mayor is broadly positive. However, down this way, we are getting a new version of Avon back – which, I understand, no one muck liked. Can I knock on the new mayor’s door and demand that the burst pipe be sorted? Ah, no, I suspect not. This is just another useless politician among a plethora of useless politicians.
What’s more, the powers on offer are limited, to say the least. They’ll have real influence over planning, transport and economic development. But the idea of giving cities real fiscal powers – of letting them raise their own taxes, as city governments in Europe and North America often can – was never really on the table.
Thank Christ for small mercies. I have enough layers of greedy, grasping, gannet-like government perpetually picking my pocket as it is, without a local mayor joining the queue.
This dreadful idea is George Osborne’s legacy, it seems. Just as well he is pissing off to the Standard, then.
It’s generally an exercise in employing the otherwise unemployable.
And guess who gets to pay for them…
Shouldn’t we encourage communities to ‘do it for themselves’? I’m thinking of how our provincial cities were advanced in the 19th century.
This is how ‘cash for peerage’ should work, build a library, make work for 1000 people, get a gong!
The first that I knew about this new mayor lark was getting a polling card. Just more quangocracy.
In France the number of mayors is being reduced, going part-time, communes merged because there is insufficient for them to do