Last night I attended an excellent debate hosted by The Culture Vulture on the subject of whether Leeds should have a Mayor. I was uninformed and undecided, not ready for the vote on Thursday and I am grateful that I went, because I have made up my mind. The event was held at the Rose Bowl at Leeds Metropolitan University, a quite impressive building! There were six panellists and a rather animated host in the form of Andrew Edwards from BBC Radio Leeds , who had the best radio voice I’ve ever heard in real life. You can see a list of the other panellists here.
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It is definitely a contentious issue for the people of Leeds; a fact I was made aware of by the numerous angry leaflets that I have happened upon in the last month or so. There is no doubt that the debate last night got people heated, and opinion was definitely divided throughout the room. A lot of good points were made by audience members, although a disappointing amount were councillors or politicians. It’s unsurprising, since they’re in amongst it but I felt it skewed the discussion a bit and I would have liked to hear more from your average Leeds resident. There was some discussion about communication with the wider public, and it’s definitely a discussion that needs to be had. It often gets forgotten that not everyone has Twitter (or even access to it), or willingly seeks this information out for themselves.
As I said, the discussion that was had last night helped me to make up my mind and I am sure you’ll all be pleased to know that I am voting ‘yes’ for a mayor in Leeds. I have not been a resident here long, but I have been an interested admirer of the city now for quite a while! And I do think it’s the best decision for Leeds, and for other cities. So much of the discussion was focused on getting the right person, and as Tom said, it seemed as though people were ‘scared of democracy’, of allowing the public to have a say in case they made the wrong decision. And that’s not say that the public won’t make the wrong decision, look at the Parliament we are saddled with now, but that is only the wrong decision in my eyes (and, of course, many others!). As Andy said, ‘my idiot is your hero’. Plus, we’re already trusting the public to vote for the councillors, many of whom were adamant that the ‘wrong’ person could come into power if the public were allowed a say. So surely we trust them to choose a mayor?
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As it stands, only one in seven people can name their Council Leader (and many of those still get it wrong!). Peter made an important point about how the current process’ shady nature (whether it intends to be or not) allows for a particular group to maintain power. I do not know enough about the politics to Leeds to know if that is the case, but no doubt the potential is there. However much we may hate the personality politics of the London Mayoral election (and indeed, voter turn out suggests that we are not the only ones!), it makes it visible. We know who we are voting for directly, and we know who to hold to account when mistakes are made and promises not delivered. Whilst Tom insisted that a mayoral system has not increased voter turn out or engagement with the public in council issues, being able to put a face to something can never be a bad thing, surely?
Clearly there is a problem with the abstract nature of the vote; for now the true powers of the potential mayors have not been laid out and so it’s hard to know what we are actually voting for. But that is the problem that has been laid out before us, and cannot be reversed now. We must take an educated guess at what the Mayor will be, which is likely to be ‘a Council Leader with knobs on’.
There was too much focus, in my eyes, about the difficulty of removing a ‘bad’ Mayor. Whilst it is true that currently a Council Leader can be removed from their post by the other councillors almost immediately, I do think this can be detrimental. Whilst in theory it promotes accountability, the temptation to appease the other councillors must surely be great. That there are council elections every year, thus constantly changing the face of the council, it’s make up and priorities may be good if something dreadful is happening, the opposite can also be true. I could not have agreed more with audience member Rachel from the School of Geography at Leeds University, who made the point that the four year term of the Mayor gives the stability for visionary leadership. It gives the potential for someone to rise above the petty quarrels and factional fighting which so often characterises local politics, and to provide leadership towards something great. Being allowed to think in the long term, rather than being forced to think in the short-term by constant elections, can allow for bigger change to be made.
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There were some underlying issues that weren’t addressed; there was a lot of chat about how only 8% of people voted for the current mayor in Doncaster, and that turned out to be a disaster (although there are historic problems with Doncaster Council so it’s not just having a Mayor that’s causing them issues!). What wasn’t brought up was how it is First Past The Post that allows this to happen, not a mayoral system. If we had a more representative voting system then this would not be an issue at all.
We have yet to see what a Mayor would look like for Leeds. The negativity towards a mayoral system, and the adage ‘if it ain’t broke don’t fix it’ which proliferated throughout the room makes me think that despite my ‘yes’ vote we will not yet get to see what it will look like for us. Whilst I am not naive enough to believe in an idealistic mayoral election with every facet of society represented, rather than the domination of white men which is characterising the Liverpool Mayoral elections as we speak, that potential is still there. The chances of getting a Mayor who cares nothing for this city are slim. And we open up the way for non-traditional politicians to take to the stand. Stuart Drummond, Mayor for Hartlepool was on the panel, an unassuming man who could have taken a lot more credit for his success. A once Hartlepool United monkey-mascot, he ran for a joke and has been elected three times in a row. He may have been thought the ‘wrong’ person by a lot people in that room if he stood for election in Leeds, but the proof is in the pudding. As he said, the Mayoral system is nowhere near perfect, but a shake up is needed in politics as a whole, and if this gets us even a step on the way then I say yes, it’s a good thing. What about you?
/ favourite smoothie for breakfast / bagels / winning raffle tickets / Bibi vouchers / friday night – blankets and brownies / got my eating leggings on! / today’s nails and rings
