I’m voting for an elected Mayor for Bristol because
1) We need someone with the democratic legitimacy to speak for the whole city not just one political party
2) We should have someone who can be selected by the whole city not just a few councillors acting in secret with vested interests in the result
3) We should have a system where the most talented people in the City can seek to be the leader of the city not just drawn from people who can afford to be councillors
4) The mayoral system is already seeing powers moving from national to local government, the more city mayors we have the stronger voice there is for this
5) We need someone who draws votes from all of the city and doesn’t ignore areas where their party can’t win wards
6) Bristol council is in a rut it needs shaking up
Yeah Yeah Yeah
May 2, 2012 by Paul Smith
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1) Democratic legitimacy? So when a single person puts through executive plans that can’t be stopped unless 2/3rds of the council…DEMOCRATICALLY ELECTED…vote otherwise, that is democratically legitimate?
2) Much better that the vested interests can be concentrated on one individual instead? Why pretend that a mayor would be pure of intention and free from bias?
Also. are the councillors that decide who leads the council from amongst their number not also selected by the whole city?
3) A fair point, up to a point, that ignores the realities of party backed mayors (no doubt why you are in favour?) that can put significant resources behind their candidate. As we’ve seen in london “talented people” that aren’t inside those lucky enough to afford to be career politicians don’t have the same basis for getting elected. We can’t ignore this reality and cross our fingers for your hypothetical
4) We don’t need mayors for power to transfer…voting for something fundamentally less accountable and less democratic shouldn’t be done for such abstract reasoning
5) So the mayor is going to really concentrate on the areas where they picked up no support too are they? They will act fundamentally differently to every other kind of politician that’s ever been?
6) It’s in a rut because the city is divided on how it wants it’s city to be run. Your solution is to attempt to circumnavigate that granularity of opinion completely, rather than promote better practices and processes to deal with politically split councils.
Those are good points but I just don’t trust them. Much prefer a bickering useless Council to an elective dictatorship composed entirely of rich businessmen & women who want nothing more than to demolish my home and replace it with a car park