DEVO DIARY: Not up all night
There will be no late-night counting of ballot papers for the terribly civilised new posts of metro mayor. Traditionally, counting would begin as soon as the polling stations closed at 10pm and the sealed boxes had been whisked off to the counting centres. Protagonists, campaigners, media, friends and family would all wait nervously, becoming ever more bleary-eyed until results were announced and hands held aloft on stage in the early hours of the morning. This time round the counts will take place on the following day, Friday 5 May, beginning at the leisurely time of 9.30am and results are expected to be known by 3pm, just in time for afternoon tea. It’s almost as if the local councils aren’t rushing to welcome in their new colleagues at the head of the table.
Consultants, think tanks and academics love a game of musical chairs with a twist to have to explain for us ordinary folk. Guides to the additional chair in Merseyside and Greater Manchester have been published by Remarkable Group, Iceni Projects, Universities of Liverpool and Manchester, the Centre for Cities, and the little-known-in-the-North-but-happens-to-be-advising-Sean-Anstee Cratus, a local government consultancy, among many others. Check them out here if you want to impress colleagues on the finer detail of city region policymaking:
- University of Manchester public policy briefing on GM Mayors
- Iceni Projects’ Guide to Purdah
- Centre for Cities’ Everything you Need to Know about Metro Mayors
- “Dear mayoral candidate”, summary of ideas collated from “thought leaders” in Liverpool City Region by Heseltine Institute for Public Policy & Practice, University of Liverpool
- Cratus blog on mayoral powers
- A Remarkable Guide to the Metro Mayors
