In 2012, after nine English cities declined the opportunity to elect their own mayors, the then housing minister, Grant Shapps, said: “No one is forcing mayors on anyone.” So it was only a matter of time, then, until mayors would, in fact, be forced on people in what the BBC’s Nick Robinson is calling a “democratic revolution”. Touring the north of England, Mr Robinson asked various citizens how they felt about having or, rather, being made to have their “own version of Boris or Ken”, a designation he had reduced, by the time he voxpopped Northallerton, to “a Boris”.
Thereby, I suppose, saving the precious broadcasting minutes that might otherwise have been used up saying: “Your own version of a swaggering, bullying, preferably wealthy male for whom leadership of your city is purely a platform for his insane, unfulfilled ambitions. And in which job any reputation as a shagger will be taken to indicate supreme potency, as opposed to incontinence. Part-time only. Latin speaker preferred. Would suit busy minor celebrity able to fit mayoral duties around newspaper columns, popular biographies, media appearances and occasional duties as a serving MP.”
None of the interviewees, to judge by Robinson’s reports, objected that a Boris is still not – outside the BBC, anyway – a universally accepted eponym. In the same way, for example, as a quisling or a sandwich. Actually, there are those who argue that, with rentable bikes and islands in the Thames already named after him, the uncritical usage, throughout broadcasting, of Johnson-glorifying language has gone quite far enough.
In fairness, Robinson probably showed good judgment in not opting, in his most truncated version, for “a Ken”. The chancellor, whose passion for imposing elected mayors on the unwilling, clearly rivals his fetish for dressing up in showerproof building-site accessories, would surely deprecate the suggestion that soon to be mayor-blessed northerners will benefit, in addition to the Johnsonian characteristics above, from Livingstone’s habit of diagnosing mental ill-health. Though as of last week, the defence expert is of course better known for empathising with perfectly sane and rational murderers of Londoners.
It’s hard to know what it is about the job, but on the whole being mayor of London does not seem to be character-building in a good way. Too much power invested in one person, perhaps, with too few checks from an impotent London assembly, whose members, when they defied him, Johnson described as “great supine protoplasmic invertebrate jellies”?
When he began, the most objectionable thing about Livingstone was probably his vanity newspaper, the Londoner, in which the newt-fancier’s achievements were regularly acclaimed, at a cost to Londoners of no more than £3m a year. Before long, he would be defending himself against charges of antisemitism, then by way of a legacy, reimagining the London skyline with the Qataris.
Similarly, when Johnson got the job, there was no hint of the individual who now insults assembly members, appoints cronies, degrades views and does not trouble to conceal his impatience at being detained, until 2016, in the metropolitan shallows. He was recently questioned by the assembly about a low-emissions scheme, now postponed beyond his departure. “In one form or another,” the mayor soothed his fretful hobbits, “I will be here. Like Gandalf I will be translated into some new form, more powerful than I can possibly imagine.” Meanwhile, he has a biography of Shakespeare to complete by Christmas.
Mayor fans argue that the special nature of London job – maximum prominence, minimal accountability – explains, along with its limited remit, why the role attracts so many mavericks and has thus, no less than I’m a Celebrity… Get Me Out of Here!, proved uninteresting to many talented but boringly sized personalities with an interest in improving lives. Sol Campbell, Diane Abbott and George Galloway were among those volunteering in the last round; the latter still thinks, perhaps justifiably with his cat-impersonation skills, that he’s in with a chance.
That Londoners have come to put a candidate’s potential for, say, victory in a kangaroo-testicle eating competition ahead of governing experience was surely confirmed when just under a quarter of them considered (hopes of Branson having finally been extinguished) that Lord Coe would make the ideal Johnson replacement. Exemplary loyalty to Nike trainers being just what’s needed to keep the capital’s fares down and its walkie talkies unbuilt. In his absence, the Conservatives picked the cute squillionaire Zac Goldsmith, distinguished, not least, for having been in a different house at Eton from Boris Johnson.
At least some of these concerns worried participants in the 2012 city referendums. Graham Chapman, for example, Labour deputy leader of Nottingham city council, feared the concentration of power, was dubious about the benefits and “energy spent on introspection and self-aggrandisement (mostly male) as opposed to achievement”.
But dashing, new metro mayors, their supporters insist, would differ from the earlier, less ambitious proposals, with their “unhelpful baggage”. Once the mayor’s powers are hugely magnified, this argument goes, as in Greater Manchester, to take in everything from dog mess to, you gather – cuts permitting – interstellar Mancunian space missions, impressive candidates will apply and people will love these new, responsible-style functionaries, who will, accordingly, will have less time to conceive of themselves as Caesar Augustus. So Christ knows what happened with Rob Ford, the powerful, oft-pissed elected mayor of Toronto, who refused to resign in 2013, even after he was filmed smoking a crack pipe. Maybe the city was just too small for him. Thankfully, evidence that it is, indeed, possible, for a sensible individual of manageably proportioned self-esteem, even a female individual of ditto, to be a powerful (though not directly elected) mayor has already emerged in Spain, in the shape of Manuela Carmena, the mayor of Madrid. Ms Carmena, a former human rights judge, came out of retirement in February, persuaded to do so by the Podemos party, and began by giving herself a pay cut. True, it is reported in a new book, she came to wish she’d refused, the job being, she says, “absolutely excessive. I am overwhelmed. I am not happy...” But her favourite part of the job, she now clarifies, is “improving Madrid” and “the quality of life of Madrileños”. A further crucial point in her favour, Carmena comes across as someone who could never be described as “a Boris or Ken”. Lucky Madrid.
In this country, if Robinson is typical, the association between Boris and mayor, and mayor and Boris, may now be so reflexive as to make similar progress impossible. At the very least, as the experts acknowledged, elected city mayors arrive with unhelpful (and still undisposed of) baggage. But even as they submit to Osborne’s blackmail – no elected mayors, no devolution – northern cities can surely find a way to frustrate the sort of charismatics and spivs for whom this job title holds such special allure. Besides, these places already have mayors. Call the elected Boris something else.