Nick Bourne has found a new way of striking home the fact that the Tories did quite well in this spring’s local elections, winning more votes in Cardiff than the Liberal Democrats, who are leading the authority.
He is demanding that the Assembly forges ahead with establishing directly-elected mayors in the Welsh cities.
Talking to the press he concentrated on Cardiff. At some time or other Mr Bourne had found out that his Tories gained most votes at the elections, although ended up as second party.
The figures for councillors returned were Lib Dems, 35; Cons, 17; Lab, 13; Plaid, 7; independent, 3. This has produced a coalition with Plaid.
It would be fascinating to know what the Cardiff-wide voting figures were.
Unfortunately, the Tories picked up the totals from Cardiff council’s web site – which has now deleted the detail. Let’s hope Mr Bourne had the sense to scribble them down somewhere.
But why does Mr Bourne want directly-elected mayors only in cities ? He says that only large urban areas contained complicated enough problems. Although his office lists a number of councils where they also polled well in May – Newport, Conwy, Denbigh, Monmouth and Vale of Glamorgan – perhaps there’s a hesitancy because in rural areas the voters are more likely to plump for a local character than one who is politically-motivated. Or perhaps because it is a line being pushed for cities by Welshman Lord Heseltine in London.
Add up the number of Tory mayors for the 22 authorities and the party might be too easily outgunned by Lib Dems and independents.
There’s been only one such referendum in Wales, and voters in Ceredigion threw out the idea by 14,000 votes to 5,000. In that case, the issue was opposition to the council granting too many planning permissions, thus allowing too great an influx of outsiders.
Mr Bourne likes to use the example of the Mayor of London – especially now that he’s a Tory. But Boris Johnson lords it over a region possessing a host of local councils, rather than a city.
The London Assembly he heads is the equivalent, in principle, of the current Welsh, Scottish and Irish institutions, and of the English regions which John Prescott tried so hard to set up.
It’s good to see Mr Bourne forwarding regional principles for England – where they are sorely needed.
But what need has Wales of elected mayors, when the system of council leaders is only now beginning to settle down, and coming to terms with local authorities which now have to be run by coalition consensus rather than old-fashioned party diktat ?
If Mr Bourne wants to make his mark, perhaps he should vote to scrap the outmoded first-past-the-post system for council elections, which produced the anti-democratic result he says has happened in Cardiff.
A system of single transferable voting in wards of five-or-so councillors would bring us democracy and the voice of the people having to be listened to. And much less upset than having elected mayors running about everywhere.
Comments
I really don’t understand your comment about ‘ the system of council leaders ‘ only just beginning to settle down.’ We’ve had council leaders for years. Even in the 1950s and 60s Glamorgan County Council had Leaders. They might not have been given that title but everyone knew that the Chair of the Policy and Resources Committee was the Leader. Similar systems existed in most of the other counties if you read Ken Morgan’s book regarding the influence of a certain councillor in rural Cardiganshire. Local government is on its knees in Wales at the moment. Elected mayors are the way forward. They are the norm in most of Europe and they would transform the Welsh political scene along with your other suggestion of PR to elect the councillors who would scrutinise the actions of the elected mayor. In Cardiff the Tories polled the most votes followed by Labour and then the Lib Dems.