Yes, it's voting day tomorrow folks and, in the interests of balance I thought I should present a short summary of the 'No' campaign's main points. So, in reverse order -
5. Some very clever people have told us that a mayor will cost about £500k. They told us this twice so that makes £1m in total. We will have to steal the food from old people's plates to be able to afford this.
4. Whenever JoCo and Graham Chapman represent the city in France one of them always makes a point of saying "Je suis le maire'. We think they've got away with it so far and actually having a real mayor would spoil the fun for next year.
3. A mayor is likely to be much more risk averse and we absolutely cannot take the risk of somebody like that being in charge. That's the gamble. Do you feel lucky, punk?
2. A mayor will NOT have any new powers so it's not worth having one. Except when we want to frighten you about ALL THE TERRIFYING POWER THE MAYOR WILL HAVE!!!!!
1. Voting for a mayor would just be a distraction from, erm something...LOOK! AN EAGLE!!
So there you have it. I think you can agree that I've covered their case in some detail. Don't let it ever be said that I'm not impartial.
When you look at the Allowances, they seem to have dropped the Expenses bit in light of the Expenses scandal and also partly to thward direct searches for Councilors Expenses on the NCC site. I went to google to get the information.
ReplyDeleteI did notice something odd about these expenses, the question remains how can 12 councilors all have exactly the same expenses? Do they go around holding hands?
All these Councilors have £10,367.47 allowances to date...
Ali, Choudry, Fox, Healy, Jeffery, Longford, McCulloch, Molife, Morris, Ottewell, Saghir & Steel. Which in anyones books is odd and makes me wonder if this was because these councilors hadn't returned expenses and have instead had someone ball park the figures. I don't know but statistically, thats not very likely that 12 would have exactly the same expenses, you may find 2 or 3 but 12? Somethings going on here.
I notice again that the councilors expenses, oops, sorry allowances comes to over £1 Million again.
I would like to know what SRA payments are specifically for. Any ideas on where to find this information?
I have enjoyed the debate this referendum has opened up and all the impartial comments...
ReplyDeleteI'm voting yes, a mayoral election would hopefully open up even more debate and maybe even get those pesky boundaries redrawn one day.
Is there any point voting no? We only have the expense of this vote thanks to the Liberal Democrats. With both national Labour and Tory parties seemingly in favour of mayors will one not simply be inflicted on us anyway when one of them gets a majority at the next general election or is this vote binding for a number of years?
Tgnc, all councillors receive a basic allowance of £10kish. They also get a special allowance if they chair a committee, say, or they are a portfolio holder, leader etc. The reason why so many get that same amount is because they are just councillors and haven't taken on any special responsibilities.
ReplyDeleteFFN, as far as I know, if there is a 'yes' vote there cannot be another referendum for 10 years but there is no such restriction in the event of a 'no' vote apparently.
So I suppose yes, a future government could decide to impose a mayor, although I think it would be a bit daft to do so if there had been a recent 'no' vote in a referendum. Mind you, just because something is 'a bit daft' doesn't always stop politicians pursuing it, does it?
Postal votes. Did they make the difference?
ReplyDeleteJanet,
ReplyDeletePostal votes comprised 46% of the total. One has to wonder...