GM Mayor Debate

[Prestwich_Blue]

Seriously?

She looks like a Spitting Image puppet.

No not seriously. It was a running joke on here for a while.

Bitter thread for me.

My brother was Green Party candidate before we lost him in Jan.

He'd been there and not a fan of Burnham. Would have kicked his arse.

Still gutted I don't have him here.

So sorry to hear that. The guy who replaced him really didn't come over well at all.

 

[balotelli's back pocket]

Well I know him better now, having met him much more. I've now upgraded my opinion of him to "a bit of a tosser" who "I probably am not going to vote for". In seriousness he's not the man I thought he was but is also not my type of person. He gives a shit about his constituency which is nice and he's delivered on several things and he'll probably make a good mayor. My problem with him is that I can't get past the fact that he is a bit of a tosser.

Well actually it's a done deal as I voted for Patterson/Greens as my first choice and Burnham as my second, having had a postal vote and filling it out earlier. I'd take Burnham over Anstee but Will Patterson from Greens impressed me the most in terms of his message. His desire to stretch the Metrolink into all ten boroughs and wanting to campaign to do this as mayor was really the big one for me. Our public transport outside of the Metrolink zones is an absolute shambles. The Met isn't a fix all solution but it's better than nothing.

Thanks for elaborating. Burnham will win because he is less of a tosser than anstee. I weep for politics :-)

 

[tshirtman]

I won't be voting

in 2012 Greater Manchester had a referendum and 53% of the voters said NO to an elected mayor,
strange how the Tory party sees some referendum results as democracy in action, whilst others can be ignored.

 

[Damocles]

Thanks for elaborating. Burnham will win because he is less of a tosser than anstee. I weep for politics :-)

We're always overly cynical because it's cool to be, but Burnham can do a lot of good here. There's a key advantage to having somebody who knows where the bodies are buried and is willing to fight Governments on it. Say what you like but he's always fought for greater funding in Northern England and was a key voice in flagellating Osborne over his fantasy Northern Powerhouse idea.

That's what we need in Manchester. We need money - money for investment, money for better social housing, money to upgrade the transport system and essentially money to grow. Out of the ten lowest towns in the country for job growth, 2 of them are in Greater Manchester and both of them are losing jobs in Wigan and Rochdale. And Wigan is our second biggest borough by population. Think how dangerous it is that our second biggest borough by population, and the least ethnically diverse for the record, has awful transport links and negative job growth. Then people wonder why it voted 65% for Leave.

We're the second biggest Large Urban Zone in the country and the 16th biggest in the entire EU. We're bigger than some national capitals or major cities such as Prague, Amsterdam, Vienna, Turin, Stockholm, etc. The generational tradition of lack of investment in this region is ridiculous.

If you look at every major economy on earth, they all have various economic centres in their country. The US has the monster that is California but also has Texas and New York as major urban centres with high GDP. China has Canton but also has Shanghai and Beijing. Germany has the Rhine-Ruhr area but also Bavaria and Stuttgart.

We are ridiculously lopsided. You can add together the GDP of Birmingham, Bradford, Bristol, Cardiff, Derby Glasgow, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Portsmouth, Southampton and Sheffield and STILL not hit London's. This is a travesty and is a failure not just by the Tories but by Labour Governments aswell who are so London focused that they've done so at the expense of literally every other city in the UK. They've all played for the next four years and in doing so have given us short term prosperity at the cost of long term fluid growth between all regions of the country.

 

[Damocles]

in 2012 Greater Manchester had a referendum and 53% of the voters said NO to an elected mayor,

No, Manchester rejected a mayor. In various polls following it, the consensus was that a Manchester mayor wouldn't be much cop but there was an overwhelming favour for a Greater Manchester mayor.

 

[Joe CurryGan]

Absolute waste of money and another level of red tape/bureaucracy. I can't see that the present (interim) Mayor, Tony Lloyd, has made any positive difference . . . police numbers are lower, crime is higher, social care is in crisis.
The position assumes an air of 'Strategic' responsibility - sounds good in theory, but without any additional money it will make no difference

 

[Damocles]

Absolute waste of money and another level of red tape/bureaucracy. I can't see that the present (interim) Mayor, Tony Lloyd, has made any positive difference . . . police numbers are lower, crime is higher, social care is in crisis.
The position assumes an air of 'Strategic' responsibility - sounds good in theory, but without any additional money it will make no difference

Isn't having a single point of contact on all services in the borough rather than various Councils and Commissions the very opposite of more red tape?

 

[Irwell]

Completely agree with Damocles. There have been votes against a 'city' mayor, but that is predominantly due to the lack of jurisprudence, jurisdiction and geographical scope. The idea of a true city-wide mayor with real control over all fiscal matters is very different to the limited remit originally offered. The GM mayor has control over things that were unimaginable only a decade ago, including things like crime, transport and even health services. This is almost an equivalent to the powers granted to the Mayor of London, which most would accept as a triumph of local politics over central diktat.

 

[CitizenTID]

I don't recognise Greater Manchester.

Another example of immoral Tories: changing historic borders for their own selfish gain.

 

[Irwell]

I don't recognise Greater Manchester.

Fair enough, so where would you draw the line as regards a functional city?