City Mayors in the UK

mrjonno · #1 by **mrjonno** » Mar 29, 2012 8:33 pm

Not sure I feel that much either way on it, local government is generally grotty and corrupt anyway (basically due to few people ever voting). Does having a mayor improve this?

Strontium Dog · #2 by **Strontium Dog** » Mar 29, 2012 10:06 pm

Concentrating power in the hands of one person very rarely improves things so far as corruption is concerned.

MacIver · #3 by **MacIver** » Mar 29, 2012 10:13 pm

Seems pretty gimmicky to me.

JustSayNoToVorderman · #4 by **JustSayNoToVorderman** » Mar 29, 2012 10:28 pm

We have a vote in Newcastle as well..two options..a Mayor who selects his/her own cabinet and can't be ousted for the term no matter how bad he/she might turn out to be..or current system of leader elected by winning party and party cabinet... No option for going back to the old system before governing by cabinet..the good old days when councillors actually had some input and things had to be debated

mrjonno · #5 by **mrjonno** » Mar 30, 2012 9:25 am

Might be coming around to on the basis that individual councillors can be elected by just getting their mates to vote for them (turnout is so low) while at least a mayor is going to cover a million people. Intelligent people tend to vote more than plebs so it might be a better idea

ED209 · #6 by **ED209** » Mar 30, 2012 10:19 am

Apart from london where the mayor is specifically responsible for some important things, don't mayors have basically fuck all to do anyway? If they are just glorified councillor then who cares - we can scarcely be fucked voting for councillors in the first place so deciding which one gets the nice car and jewellery seems doubly irrelevant.