‘Do you want Tony Banks to be the elected Mayor of London in the third year of a Labour government?’ I posed the right question, albeit with the wrong candidate, at a meeting of Labour’s Joint Policy Committee in 1996 responding to Tony Blair’s proposal to have a directly elected Mayor for London. Frank Dobson, Labour’s shadow environment secretary, seemed somewhat taken aback but Tony Blair shrugged off the question saying ‘that’s not very comradely is it?’ and moved on. In this casual fashion, a significant change in local government was launched into Labour’s policymaking process.
The motives were laudable. Proponents of elected mayors considered that they would increase interest in local government and turn out in local elections, making the key decision maker more visible and, by virtue of having a personal mandate from the electorate, more accountable.
Continental experience was cited in support, Barcelona and the Netherlands were held up as examples. In fact, Barcelona’s mayor is indirectly elected, being the leader of the largest political group on the council, and as a delegation sent by the Labour party to Holland to study the system there discovered, Dutch mayors are crown appointees.
Moreover, neither the referendums nor most of the mayoral elections that have subsequently taken place have demonstrated significantly greater interest than ordinary council elections. Even this year’s London mayoral election, for all the massive media attention, generated a turnout of only 45 per cent, just a few percentage points higher than the turnout in other large cities. Even Hazel Blears, an enthusiastic supporter of elected mayors, has argued that London’s election was essentially about the politics of personality.
That was always the intention. A senior cabinet minister told me at the time of Ken Livingstone’s first election: ‘we didn’t think it would be like this. We thought you would have somebody running a hospital or similar organisation coming forward to stand.’
The subtext was clear – what was needed was not something political in the conventional sense; almost the less political the better. A charismatic party leader, the most charismatic in a couple of generations, perhaps understandably placed a premium on the politics on personality. I recall that in one conference speech Tony Blair, addressing the audience outside the hall, said, ‘you elected me as prime minister’. The truth, of course, is that we elected a Labour government and with it Tony Blair as prime minister.
Nor have the arguments about visibility and accountability been justified by events. It is perfectly possible to be a visible council leader without being directly elected. Even at 5′ 6″ and 13 years after I ceased to be leader of Newcastle City Council, for example, I am still recognised on the city’s streets – and, usually, greeted cordially.
And accountability does not seem to have been the hallmark of the mayoral regime in terms of effective day-to-day scrutiny, at least in London.
For Labour, too, there has been very little in the way of a political dividend. Stoke, with the first mayor as an independent , and Doncaster have been riven by disputes between mayors and Labour groups, Labour towns like Middlesbrough, Hartlepool and Mansfield have independent mayors, towns with Labour marginal constituencies like Watford and Bedford have non -Labour mayors, North Tyneside admittedly has a Labour mayor, at the third time of asking, but only by virtue of the fact that the last mayoral election coincided with the general election. Only in London where three extremely able former council leaders were elected in Newham, Lewisham and Hackney can the politics seem to have justified the experiment.
This is not to say the mayoral option may not be appropriate, albeit with some greater accountability safeguards. Places such as Hackney had councils that were so dysfunctional that the mayoral option offered a palpably better alternative. If the local electorate wishes to initiate a referendum on elected mayors it can easily do so – the threshold for petitions is very low and there is no threshold for turnout.
However, there is no case for imposing elected mayors, unless one adopts the view of Nick Boles, leading Tory thinker and adviser to Boris Johnson, who advocates their imposition as the quickest route for the Tories to regain power in the bigger cities like Liverpool, Manchester and Newcastle. This is not an argument calculated to enthuse members of the Labour party.
As the party approaches the National Policy Forum and the lead-up to the next manifesto, ministers should resist a policy which is neither particularly popular with, nor of much interest to, an electorate preoccupied with more substantive matters, and one which commands little support amongst the now diminished ranks of Labour councillors.
Absolutely right – we need to do something about people’s jobs, homes, care homes and about the environment, and stop this navel-gazing nonsense.
I agree 100% with the comments made by Jeremy. It is time that the Party concentrated on policy instead of on personality. As a Group Leader, I firmly believe that the combined talents of the Labour Group are far superior to the talents of any individual. It needs to be recognised that policies, instead of tinkering with the system, is what will make the Party popular again.
I did not canvass one person in the run-up to the local elections in May who expressed any view about elected mayors. For most people it is simply a non-issue – exceot for the Ken Livingstone/Boris Johnson contest. People are far more interested in the issues that affect them personally – not the structures of local government. This is all simply a distraction which should be put to one side while we concentrate on the local government issues that matter – housing, education, health and social care, the state of the roads etc. A preoccupation with elected mayors does not connect with local priorities.
Agreed. I think Jeremy will find that the turn-out figures are frequently even worse than he states. In Hackney the percentage poll for the Mayoral election (2006) was actually lower than it was for the individual councillors – presumably because everyone knew that the Labour candidate would win.
As a Leader of a Labour Group I share with John Mutton’s view that the thoughts and talents of our admittedly small group add up to more than any one individual.
I agree wholeheartedly.
Not only are Mayors irrelevant, but democracy is seriously undermined. What are Labour councillors elected for if it is not to put forward and carry out (if in power) true Labour policies.
A further point which was touched on is the role of back-bench councillors and minority groups. Councillors have little enough power/influence at the moment with the cabinet style of local government. Full council meetings are just a farce nowadays. The appointment/election of mayors moves ordinary councillors one step further away from the democratic process that we all signed up to in years gone by.
Jeremy – you argue that a mayoral system could allow the Tories to gain power in some cities, but isn’t the same much more true from Labour’s perspective? Wouldn’t an elected mayoral system give Labour a much better chance of winning back Birmingham, Leeds, Newcastle, Liverpool et al, rather than painstakingly having to gain a majority of councillors?
Also, wouldn’t you agree that council leaders currently have very low visability in their community? How many people for instance could name their local leader (I’d wager it was below a quarter)? If you don’t go down the mayoral route, how are you going to rectify this?
Regards
James
I agree with Jeremy.
It is worth mentioning the unusual situation in Bedford. Here, until recently, our independent Mayor ran his own political party, campaigned against other parties – including Labour – and won seats in local elections.
Subsequently the Borough, under the Mayor, has succeeded in a bid to convert to a unitary council. This means that the Mayor will take on much wider responsibilities including social services and education.
All the existing Borough and County councillors will have to stand again for the smaller number of unitary council seats but the Mayor has not been required to seek a fresh mandate. Indeed, one of the reasons given by the government for choosing the Borough bid was the existence of a “working mayoralty.” But the Mayor is the former proprietor of the town’s Sunday newspaper so it’s a matter of personality politics, rather than the application of any relevant expertise.
The new council elected next year will have a large rural element and will inevitably be dominated by the Tories.
I am perplexed by the government’s position in cases such as Bedford’s. It is almost as if an ideological predisposition towards elected mayors has blinded it to the political realities. I continue to have an open mind about this form of local government, but in future, can we please stick to the principle of putting Labour first?
I fully agree with sir jeremys comments and so do most of the back benchers across the country
Well said Jeremy. The Mayoral system in Doncaster has failed. The knock on effect is that the Parliamentary representatives will suffer with one possibly two losing their seats at the next general election. Hats of to you, mate.
It’s difficult having a balanced view at present because we are “up against it” in the polls currently. Elected Mayors definitely create more public interest in local Council affairs – even that 45% turnout in London is twice that in ordinary local election turnout in our town wards in the May elections. If Labour’s message is good, its organisation is good and its candidate for Elected Mayor is good, there is no way that the Elected Mayor arrangements would particularly disadvantage Labour.