David Ottewell has an interesting post on his blog about the possibility of an Elected Mayor for Greater Manchester:
It seems the government remains wedded to the idea of elected mayors. The Department for Communities and Local Government put out a major paper today outlining its plans to devolve more powers to individual councils and so-called ‘city-regions’ like Greater Manchester. It is being heralded by John Denham as ‘the biggest single transfer of power in a generation’.
I’ve not yet read the Government’s paper in detail, but I will do so with an open mind. Certainly it can only be preferable to the current situation whereby the Labour Council leaders across Greater Manchester roll over and let Sir Richard Leese (Manchester City Council leader) tell them what to do.
The net result of this, of course, is that our Council Tax in Salford is going to rise continually for decades, and our local road safety schemes are going to get slashed, so that Sir Richard’s Labour backbenchers can have Metrolink run through their wards in south Manchester. Meanwhile in Salford, our sole consolation is a useless white elephant scheme (the Leigh Guided Busway) which we don’t want anyway. Such a shame that our own Council Leader cannot stand up for Salford’s interest at AGMA.
A Day In Norwich
The Conservative candidate, Chloe Smith, was a contemporary of mine at the University of York, and I know she’ll make an absolutely fantastic local representative for the people of Norwich North if she is elected on Thursday.
We campaigned in two different parts of the constituency and attended a short rally with Chloe and David Cameron in Drayton. It was a long trek but I saw many familiar faces who had made the journey and it is great to see that the Conservative Party is pulling together to make sure that we elect a hard-working Conservative MP for Norwich North. Good luck Chloe!