November 21, 2015

Both parties are divided on this issue

But Labour's divisions are so much worse. Especially on just about any defence related issue.

I must also add that I heard the Conservative chairman of the defence select committee (Dr Julian Lewis) on Radio 4 this morning talking about the possibility of military action in Syria and I agreed with almost every word that he said! There are many good arguments for military action, but we need to be sure that we do not make mistakes when it does happen, and that such action is taken on the right terms.

November 17, 2015

I do remember the Sheffield referendum in 2012

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1088700

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.