Boris of the North – an elected mayor is Manchester’s best option for devolution

Joe Wright, 5 November 2014

Despite rejecting the idea of a city mayor in 2012, Greater Manchester will receive its first elected mayor in 2017. To coordinate the creation of a ‘northern power house’, George Osborne and Manchester council leaders agreed a deal this week, dubbed ‘Devo Manc’, to reorganise the city’s political structure.

The new mayor will be responsible for a population of 2.7 million people and a GDP of £50 billion – £5 billion larger than Wales’. They will receive control over transport, policing, skills and housing, leading a cabinet – the Greater Manchester Combined Authority – made up of the leaders of Manchester’s 10 councils.

Devo Manc contains a number of sweeteners for local councils in return for accepting a mayor, including control of a new investment fund worth £300m to build 15,000 new homes across the region, a £450 million tram extension and control of a skills budget £500 million.

More importantly, the deal gives Manchester a figurehead ─ someone recognisable to encourage private investment in the city, or to blame for its failures. This is an age of increasing popularity for the mayoral system. Mayors of successful cities can be as recognisable as any cabinet minister. They reflect an image of the city and, for better or worse, are an advert for it, such as London’s Boris or New York’s Giuliani.

Some have argued this is a political move – a way for Tory ministers to bypass troublesome Labour councils in cities by centralising power, the same as in London. It is infuriating for Labour that a city of their MPs has returned a Tory mayor in half of all elections. They should, however, take some refuge in the knowledge that Boris Johnson is somewhat of an anomaly in modern British politics. But even were he not: that’s democracy for you, ‘bad taste’ or not.

Misgivings remain about extending this system across the UK. Devolution is a loaded question for voters torn between the desire for more attention to their community, and hesitancy about creating new bureaucracy. A stronger case needs to be made that these are interdependent problems: disaffection with politics comes from being ignored because power lies in Westminster. Mayors are very visible proof it does not.

The trouble with pluming for assemblies instead – the only other (and equally rejected) alternative to mayors – is it creates the same problems faced by councils: more faces people will not recognise. Mayors may consolidate local power, but at least people know where it lies and how to change its wielders. Local councils have made themselves irrelevant to the vast majority of their voters because they look complicated and bureaucratic. Mayors keep it clean. Creating strong accountability in the form of a mayor’s question time, or a strong opposition, is a better break on power than layers of bureaucracy.

Thinking pragmatically, cities and regions should take any chance of devolution. The process of getting Westminster to relinquish control has been so drawn out and fruitless over the years that, without another seismic shock like the Scottish referendum, Manchester may not see another chance for decades.

Of course, with the election scheduled for 2017, none of this is set in stone.