The Localism Act provides for referenda on whether to change the system of local government (to that of a directly elected mayor) to take place on the same day as polling for the local council elections this year in major English cities outaide London.

Here in Birmingham, the debate is just getting into gear.

There are campaigns for a "YES" vote, and for a "No" vote.

Their respective websites may give you some idea of how I'm inclined to vote:

YES: http://yestobirminghammayor.com/

NO: http://www.votenotoapowerfreak.org.uk/index.htm

_________________
I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

You prefer this lot, yes?

_________________
MY COMMENTS ARE FROM THE HORSES MOUTH AND ARE ALL FACTS

Close, but no cigar.

_________________
I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

Any campaign based on "Let's do what Stoke did" has to be scraping a pretty shallow barrel.

We're (Salford) having a mayoral election in May after the yes campaign (organised by some English Democrat crank... from Bury) won the referendum in January on a whopping 18.1% turnout. I voted against it myself - a city region mayor or, even better, a regional assembly would have much more clout. The local Tories were all for it, of course, because it's the only way they could potentially fluke their way into power in what is a staunch Labour borough. Admittedly, Salford Labour have long been an incestuous, inept joke. I'll probably end up voting for whoever the Greens put up myself. What worries me is the prospect of ending up with another Peter Davies-esque loon.

_________________
Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle.

I''ll go for the one with the website that doesn't look like they stopped learning about websites in 2003

We've got the country's most controversial politician as our mayor: Lutfur Rahman, who's frozen council tax and voted for David Milliband as Labour leader among other terrifying stuff.

Socialist Action publish regular posts by him. I wonder if they've noticed the above.

I was thinking that.....

Me too.

_________________
Si vas a plagiar noticias, no uses un sitio de noticias falsas como fuente.


Last edited by Carlos The Badger on Thu Feb 31, 2021 18:60 am, edited 666 times in total.

Is that 'Vote No' website really the official one? As a fellow Brummie, I have to say I'm as yet unconvinced an elected mayor will be right for us but if that's the standard of the opposition...

Yes, it's bog-awful, isn't it? That and the ludicrousness of the arguments that the No campaign is putting forward is having the effect of driving this one time agnostic to the Yes camp.

And oh yeah - the fact that John Hemming supports the No campaign.

_________________
I'm a nasty, violent lefty. You cunt.

Oh, he's not is he? It gets worse! And yes, the content as well as the design of the website is awful. My concerns are the familiar ones - [potentially too much power in the hands of one person, what if we get some nutter (H'Angus the Monkey, Boris Johnson, etc) - but still not sure which way the vote will go, or despite the efforts of the media and local politicians, whether that many people are even aware of the arguments.

I'd vote for King Kong if they'd let him back...

That was New York, not Birmingham.

_________________
"Common Sense is the collection of prejudices aquired by age eighteen" - Albert Einstein

Au contraire.