Andy Burnham’s coup

[Sandysandybeaches]

I’m feeling increasingly annoyed and worried about this.
He seems like a decent chap and clearly popular in Manchester but it feels increasingly ‘off’ that he is arriving like done kind of messiah to save us all. It feels like an arrogance and very undemocratic. Were there really no Labour mps up to the job?
His aims and vision sound great but there was nothing about how he’ll actualy achieve it and I worry that people will soon feel let down and the trust in mainstream parties will be broken even further.

Thr focus on Manchester I find worrying from someone who wants to run the entire country. How does an extra layer of admin in other place help everyone else who still lives somewhere peripheral? No offence to Mancunians but they’re even further from me than London and I am not interested in the place, in fact it sounds like rural areas, the south west and north east will be even more ignored.

It does feel increasingly like a bloodless coup.

It was pretty clear to me?

Mayoral government has been rejected by many cities, including the City of Manchester. People know that more politics and more politicians is a bad thing. One good move Labour has made is to announce the abolition of Police and Crime Commissioners - total waste of time and money. But then so would be the proposed change to regional mayors.

The idea that local councils with more money and more power will make good decisions and improve lives is laughable.

Worth pointing out the City of Manchester mayoral election was about one for the city, not GM total. I voted no in that one because I thought if we did have an elected mayor type role it should be larger and regional, not because I opposed the existence of the role at all. There were others like me. It wasn't a rejection of any elected mayoral role full stop because that wasn't one of the questions on the ballot.

I've been listening to what has been said about Manchester. I then looked into it and Burnham has been good at getting successive governments to allocate money to Manchester. We will need him now to reverse those skills to save and reallocate money - as Starmer tried to do with the Labour MPS, who weren't willing.

Below is an article, from a year ago, where the UK tax payer paid £600,000 to remove signs from a failed Clean Air Zone project in Manchester. The clean buses project was instead of this. Doubly interesting because the video has the person up for the vacant Mayor post explaining:

Scrapped Greater Manchester Clean Air Zone signs removal begins - BBC News

What is the most staggering about that article is that it costs £600k to take down some signs. No doubt because of health and safety laws prompting council workers to do all sorts of nonsense form filling and special procurement processes before a man in a hard hat could take a few signs off a few lamp posts.

Words fail me.

Fair enough, but many cities, including Manchester, have rejected mayors. What led particular voters to throw out the idea in their area we can’t know. But my money’s on voters realising that it was wasteful.

I must say I don't know anyone who says they gave any thought to whether other cities had rejected mayors when voting. My experience of Mancs is we tend to think more on our own terms!

Ooh yes how could I have forgotten about GB who also became party leader without a IMMEDIATE (for clarity) election upon his appointment. How funny you thought I didn’t know these leaders all fought a GE eventually 😂. I mean that’s pretty much in the job description for party leader isn’t it?

Clearly AB will fight an election AT SOME POINT (for clarity) as all party leaders do (unless they are ousted too quickly whereupon their successor fights a GE). But he’s under no pressure to do it any time soon. I’d like to see him get on with the job of running the country first so we’ve something to judge him on.

If you are interested, I support the system we have, which is you elect a party then they get a whole term in office. I’d prefer if the party didn’t change PM and in the past that hasn’t happened all that much in the past. I’ve been observing politics since Jimmy Callaghan and this merry go round way of running things is pretty recent. But no way a GE each time PM changes or no one would get any work done.

I’m not sure where the idea of one city’s voters considering other cities came from. Certainly not from me.

I expect all local voters cast their votes with just their own area in mind. And loads rejected mayors.

AB hasn’t just got govt funding for Manchester, he’s got businesses to invest there too. Manny is booming and it shows when you go there.

Because you mentioned other areas rejecting mayors in a discussion about why Manchester did- was there some other reason you brought it up?

Lol seems I guessed correctly!

Yes. Because it shows that mayoral government has been widely rejected.

So the proposal to create more local government machinery and push power to it is regarded with suspicion. Which is an obstacle for devolving powers.

As far as I can tell, 'CA' is 'combined authority'.

We don't have this in Scotland. I'm not at all clear how this mayoral thing would work in Scotland/NI. Would we have devolved devolution within devolution?

Right. Well as I said, I'm not sure the decisions of voters elsewhere are of relevance to Manchester or Mancunian voters, and we don't actually know that votes against one particular proposal were for the reasons you describe here. Factually, the people of one borough of GM rejecting one mayoral model only didn't function as an obstacle for devolving powers.