Thinking about this, does anyone know what or who the patient zero for the idea that “mayors” solve something in British politics might be? I remember it as an early Blairite thing, but thinking about it, the Treasury seems to love it even more than DCLG. That said, it seems to have become part of the political class’s common sense, despite the public’s enormous indifference, so it might not do to ascribe significance to where it ended up.
Jonathan Hopkin, on Twitter, points out that Italy introduced directly elected mayors in 1993, which would be well-timed for the thinktank world (perhaps Demos, or Will Hutton?) to pick up as something fashionably European. I hadn’t thought of this, chiefly because it was always presented as being American in inspiration. Perhaps someone sold it to Tony Blair as being Italian and to Gordon Brown as being American?
@yorksranter @thomasforth @Metatone2 @dsquareddigest @CityMetric directly elected mayors since 1993
— Jonathan Hopkin (@jrhopkin) October 26, 2015
I remember it as being associated with John Prescott’s ministry as well as with Tony Zoffis, but lately the Treasury seems to be the key actor.
Consider this an open thread on the issue; I suspect either Chris Brooke or Jamie Kenny might know.
Don’t know about patient zero, but it’s worth noting that it all ties together with one of the aims of privatisation – which is to reduce the number of things ministers are accountable for.
Mayors introduce another figure to “be held responsible” (by voters and media) while Treasury sets the rules and formulas for funding.
Not sure who picked up the ball over here, but I’d always associated it with Rudy Giuliani’s self-proclaimed success in driving down NYC crime through broken windows/zero tolerance policies in his first term.
Wikipedia has it that “Crime figures in England & Wales during the late 1990s and early 2000s were often misinterpreted in the media and scrutinised because of frequent changes in the way crimes were counted and recorded that lead to rises in the crime category ‘Violence Against the Person’.” which broadly aligns with my memory.
I had assumed ‘desire to imitate America’, but, having worked for various American companies and/or British companies with doomed forrays into America I probably have a bias towards seeing that.
Prior to there being a ‘mayor of London’ I suspect the Family Fortunes answers to ‘Mayor of ‘ would have been
New York
Paris
Casterbridge
Springfield
(plus Chicago for those who know about Mayor Daley)
Actually, Google autocomplete give me
Mayor of London
Mayor of Scaredy Cat Town (WTF? A bar in London apparently)
Mayor of Bristol
Mayor of Casterbridge
This 1997 Fabian Society report was quite influential – http://capitadiscovery.co.uk/brighton-ac/items/689701. Later, Blair never got behind John Prescott’s elected regional assemblies idea and, even before the North East referendum of 2004 rejected an assembly, 10 Downing St gave mayors a renewed push as an alternative. There was the whole ‘getting things done’ thing that appealed to him, and also the chance he saw, I reckon, to depoliticise old Labour fiefdoms – hence everyone from Alex Ferguson to Richard Branson and John King being touted. Enthusiasm waned when few of these types came forward. Think it’s always had more support in Number 10 than other departments since then, the Treasury support coming quite recently.