The principle of elected mayors is all well and good. But if they are to be of any real point, they need proper powers and to be people who don’t want to just open a few fayres and get a few photo opportunities. To do this though, they need real power.

Hence, I agree with this:

Directly elected mayors should govern every big city with powers to raise or cut local business taxes by 4p, an influential think-tank says today.

This would enable mayors to raise tens of millions of pounds to spend on local services. The report, from the New Local Government Network, also suggests that all mayors should be elected after US-style primaries to choose each party’s candidates and encourage more active participation from voters. (The Times)

There’s no point to elected mayors unless they have a good amount of power and can actually do stuff. Devolving real power is the only way to make elected mayors worth having. Just transferring some from local councils is not doing what needs to be done.