The government offered the wrong mayoral model in last month’s referendums. It should not be surprised by the results

By Dermot Finch

—After last month’s resounding ‘no’ votes, elected city mayors look set to be a rarity across England, not the norm. Four cities have switched to the mayoral system in the last year (Bristol, Leicester, Liverpool and Salford) but nine have rejected it (including Birmingham, Leeds and Manchester).

So why did most cities say ‘no’ and how should Labour respond? I should declare an interest. I am a big fan of elected mayors. When I ran the Centre for Cities I pushed hard for a new generation of powerful London-style ‘metro mayors’ to run places like Greater Manchester and Merseyside. Not just figureheads, but leaders with real financial clout over transport, housing and skills. If Greater London’s mayor is a good model for our capital, then surely it is for Greater Manchester and Birmingham too?

Why? Because metro mayors would be more visible than existing city leaders, who are indirectly elected by other councillors and often invisible to voters. Here is the proof: turnout in London’s mayoral elections is always higher than in the rest of England (38 per cent last month, compared to 32 per cent). And, second, big city mayors, armed with personal mandates from hundreds of thousands of voters, can drive a harder bargain with the Treasury and the rest of Whitehall. This has delivered better results for Londoners since 2000.

So why were so many voters unconvinced? I would identify three main factors as to why so many cities voted ‘no’ last month: voters’ disaffection with politics; the lack of any real campaign for mayors; and, critically, the mayoral model on offer was the wrong one.

Public antipathy to mainstream politics is palpable, exacerbated by the recession and midterm blues. When asked by the coalition if they wanted an elected mayor, most normal people could not see the point. They were already fed up with politicians, and did not want any more. Only about one in four bothered to vote in the referendums, and most of those who did thought elected mayors were a wasteful and unnecessary extra layer of bureaucracy. Compared to the economy, elected mayors were just a distraction. The demand simply was not there.

The second reason for the ‘no’ votes was the poorly executed campaign in favour. Elected mayors were not championed properly by David Cameron or any of his ministers. The Tories’ 2010 manifesto committed the party to hold referendums on elected mayors in 12 cities outside London. But the Liberal Democrats were largely against, and not all Conservatives agreed. Cameron was constrained by his own localism mantra: he could not talk about devolution and empowerment and at the same time impose his will on mayors. So although they got a mention in the coalition agreement, elected mayors were not a priority.

If they had been serious, ministers would have pushed a much more concerted campaign over the last two years. Instead, Cameron popped up in Bristol a week beforehand, communities secretary Eric Pickles was ambivalent, and cities minister Greg Clark struggled to explain why mayors mattered.

Labour did not embrace elected mayors either. Ed Miliband was nervous because of the Doncaster experience – a decade of controversial and ineffective mayors – on his doorstep (in fact, Doncaster voted two-to-one to keep its mayor). Incumbent Labour city leaders – in Manchester, Nottingham, Newcastle and Leeds – were opposed to elected mayors. David Miliband, Hazel Blears, James Purnell, Ruth Kelly, Alastair Campbell and Tony Blair have all spoken up in favour of mayors but none are now in frontline politics. Within the current party leadership there was no committed advocate – apart from Liam Byrne, whose bid for Birmingham mayor has come to nothing.

As a result, the campaign was left to two enthusiastic but unelected peers – Michael Heseltine and Andrew Adonis – and a random series of threadbare groups on the ground. Adonis (who is chair of Progress) in particular did a heroic job, visiting all the referendum cities and working hard behind the scenes to make the case. He and Heseltine even had the personal support of Cameron and No 10 director of strategy Steve Hilton. But that was never going to be enough to persuade hundreds of thousands of voters to say ‘yes’.

The third main reason for the ‘no’ votes was the proposed mayoral model itself. This was fundamentally flawed. Rather than powerful metro mayors, only single-authority mayors were on offer with very unclear powers. These feeble, figurehead mayors were a waste of time – and for that reason the public was quite right to reject them. A mayor of Manchester makes no sense – it needs to be a mayor of Greater Manchester, with real financial powers over transport, housing and skills. That was not on offer, so the people turned down what was.

So what happens next? It is clear that elected mayors will only appear if local authorities or their voters want them (as happened in Liverpool, Leicester and Salford), not through a centrally imposed process. Adonis has optimistically predicted that most English cities will switch to having a mayor within a decade, possibly by extending the role of elected police commissioners. I am not convinced. I would like Labour to embrace metro mayors and persuade existing Labour council leaders to do the same. But I suspect that mayors are off the 2015 manifesto agenda, and will only gain ground in cities that want them.

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Dermot Finch is head of public affairs at Fishburn Hedges and a former director of the Centre for Cities

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Photo: crabchick