Two years ago Mancunians rejected plans for an elected mayor. Now Greater Manchester is being told that it will have an elected mayor regardless of the electorate’s wishes, making your headline (Mancunians granted power to elect mayor, 4 November) doubly wrong. The people of Greater Manchester will not be able to vote on whether or not they want a mayor, presumably because there is a risk of them giving the “wrong” answer again. Even worse, as Liverpool’s elected mayor has pointed out, “whatever they’re giving back to the region with this plan is nothing compared to what they are taking away”. Patrick Wintour has pointed out that this will undoubtedly portray “the chancellor in a favourable light in north-west marginal seats” (Report, theguardian.com, 3 November). The question is why the predominantly Labour leaders of Greater Manchester, after years of austerity, have signed up to this deal so close to a general election.
Declan O’Neill
Oldham, Greater Manchester
• While welcoming the idea of greater financial control promised by “Devo Manc”, I can’t help but be suspicious about George Osborne’s motives. His declaration to the people of Greater Manchester that “this will give Mancunians a powerful voice” may sit uneasily with the non-Mancunian majority in the region, and his trumpeting of a future mayor seems suspiciously like creating the opportunity for increased control by the Westminster-based party political establishment. Is he perhaps hoping to find one Boris to rule them all?
Chris Hardman
Manchester
• The main thrust of George Osborne’s proposals appears to be the re-creation of the former Greater Manchester metropolitan county council, but this time run by an elected mayor rather than elected councillors. The GM council was one of six in the great metropolitan areas (Greater London already had one) created by Tory secretary of state Peter Walker in 1974. Their role was essentially strategic. They were run by capable people and were generally considered a success. All seven councils were vindictively abolished in 1986 by Margaret Thatcher and Norman Tebbit essentially because they were run by the Labour party. So the re-establishment of a Greater Manchester strategic authority is to be welcomed and should be paralleled in other metropolitan areas.
The one huge caveat is that unless the new mayors are given full control over local tax levels, with no Whitehall interference, they will never exercise true governance of their areas.
Robin Wendt
Chester
• Newcastle city council leader Nick Forbes is right to assert that without a change in the unbalanced funding system “there will be nothing left for government to devolve to” (Slowly, a revolution is stirring in Britain’s most dynamic cities, 6 November). In addition to a reform of local government finance, three further measures are required: a return to and development of the Total Place policy introduced by the Labour government, in which the totality of public expenditure by local and central governments and its agencies would be reviewed and reshaped at local level; minimum national entitlements to key levels of service provision and benefits; and, preferably, the restoration of government offices in the regions, which acted as a valuable conduit between local government, the regions and central government until the present government abolished what a previous Conservative had usefully created.
Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords; former leader, Newcastle city council
