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Related: About this forumTories Plan Devolution to Cities and a "Northern Powerhouse"
... Last year, Osborne signed a deal with the leaders of Greater Manchester, who are almost all from the opposition Labour Party, under which the city will have an elected mayor from 2017 with new powers over transport, planning, housing and policing. "My door is now open to any other major city who wants to take this bold step into the future. This is a revolution in the way we govern England," Osborne said in a speech in Manchester.
With Scotland set to get new powers under promises made by London to persuade Scots to reject independence in a referendum last year, calls for devolution within England have grown louder.
The thinking is that local leaders with detailed knowledge of their area's needs can tailor better policies than London bureaucrats.
This fits into Osborne's "Northern Powerhouse" strategy to boost the economy of northern England, which has lagged behind London and the southeast for decades since the collapse of industries like cotton, steel and coal-mining...
/... http://uk.reuters.com/article/2015/05/14/uk-britain-politics-osborne-idUKKBN0NZ1HX20150514
Obvious city/connurbation candidates would include Bristol/Avonmouth, Southampton/Portsmouth, Birmingham/Wolverhampton, Leeds-Sheffield, Hull, Liverpool, Newcastle, Glasgow,... and of course Greater London.
non sociopath skin
(4,972 posts)... other than, of course, the fact that a Showbiz Tory like Johnson may get his grubby mitts on one of them.
The Skin
LeftishBrit
(41,192 posts)But I can't help finding the Greater London possibility in particular REALLY ironic. I lived there in the 80s when Thatcher was madly trying, and eventually succeeding, in abolishing the GLC. And it was us lefties who were pointing out that we might know our needs better than Maggie et al; and that this was an undemocratic practice.
'local leaders with detailed knowledge of their area's needs can tailor better policies than London bureaucrats.'
Yes, if permitted to do so. Does this also mean that Maggie's rate-capping policies will be reversed?
T_i_B
(14,734 posts)With the exception of Bristol, they were rejected as the proposals people were being asked to vote on were incredibly vague.
A lot of the Tories ideas for the North in the last parliament seemed to be made by people with no knowledge of local history and culture, and worse still, no understanding of basic geography.
Denzil_DC
(7,188 posts)I'm in favour of federalism in principle, but the impression I got (and I'm far from on the ground) was that as well as being vague, the proposals (and the referendum under Prescott) were at risk of setting up just another "talking shop" layer of government, hence the lack of popular support.
In comparing the situation with Scotland, pundits seem to forget that the pressure for devolution was bottom-up, which is a far stronger basis for setting up assemblies. (Of course, when Labour set up what's become the Scottish Parliament, they didn't have many ambitions for it and saw it more as a souped-up regional council over which they'd hold sway in perpetuity; then it growed and growed ...).
T_i_B
(14,734 posts)There was pretty much no campaigning on the subject one way or the other. The Tories have virtually no presence in Sheffield. Labour & the Lib Dems weren't keen and chose to concentrate on council elections instead.
But the big problem with the proposal was that it did not specify what powers an elected mayor for Sheffield might have. That I would suggest was the biggest thing that sunk the proposal. Very difficult to persuade people about the merits of such a vague scheme.
One issue I have noticed with the current proposals is that apparently the elected mayors won't just be for the cities themselves but for "city regions". So as an example, the Sheffield Mayor will also have powers over Rotherham, Barnsley, Doncaster, Chesterfield and even parts of Nottinghamshire.
Now I live just over the border from Sheffield in Derbyshire, and one of the advantages of living where I am is that we get better public services than our friends in South Yorkshire. If our libraries and bin collections are run from Sheffield instead of Chesterfield and Matlock that will not be popular round these parts.
A lot depends on what powers an elected mayor would actually have.
Denzil_DC
(7,188 posts)I was thinking of the 2004 referendum in the North East, which overwhelmingly rejected a regional assembly: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/talking_point/3984991.stm
ETA: It's interesting to see that this thread already has by far the most views of any on the first page in this group apart from the, erm, lively "Who would want to be in Corbyn's Foreign Policy Shadow Cabinet?" - no idea what that might indicate!
T_i_B
(14,734 posts)I thought it was more relevant to post a reply on this thread than start a new one.
Didn't notice that.
T_i_B
(14,734 posts)The survey suggested 44% had never heard of the policy and 20% had heard of it but know nothing about it.
The Powerhouse attempts to redress the north/south divide and attract investment to the north.
The Northern Powerhouse is the brainchild of Chancellor George Osborne, who is aiming to bridge the economic gap between the north and south by attracting investment and improving transport links between its towns and cities.