Mayoral elections in Greater Manchester. Do people know what they're voting for?

Manchester Town Hall

NEXT month, the 2.8 million people of Greater Manchester, will be asked to vote for the first directly elected mayor for Greater Manchester, who will have powers over transport, homes, policing, and skills.

A great deal has been said about the lack of consultation with the public about ‘Devolution for Manchester’, also known as ‘Devo Manc’. Research that has been undertaken, suggests that while some people may have heard about ‘devolution’, most people have virtually no public understanding of what it means.  

A 2015 survey, revealed that 88% of people questioned, had never heard of Devo Manc. Indeed, few will be aware, that almost twelve-months ago, Greater Manchester acquired control of the regions £6bn health and social care budget. Similarly, the clear majority of the people of Greater Manchester, will be unaware that the consultation ‘Taking Charge Together’, ever took place and that only 6,000 people out of a population of 2.8 million, have responded.

This lack of a general understanding about Devo Manc by the people of Greater Manchester, seems all the stranger, when it is being claimed that devolution will give power back to the people and let them have greater control over the decisions that affect them. Yet, the devolution deal was signed behind closed doors in Manchester Town Hall and more than two years on, the population of Greater Manchester, remain largely shut out of the conversation. The Labour MP, Lisa Nandy, who represents Wigan, recently wrote:

“The public consultation on these sweeping changes was not properly publicised, ran for just three weeks and received only 12 responses – 10 of them from the same council leaders that signed the deal in the first place. It didn’t even mention the NHS. When the deal was announced by press release from Whitehall, MPs, councillors, and the public had little idea what it was. And as legislation was passed to enable the transfer of powers, it wasn’t even clear who in government was accountable for it.”

Although the MP for Wigan believes that the UK is moving towards a more federal structure, she fears that devolution decision-making in Greater Manchester, will not be pushed down to the people, but leveled up from local communities to Manchester town hall. Nandy points out that the decision to have a directly elected mayor for Greater Manchester, was imposed from Whitehall less than two years after the city of Manchester voted to reject one. Moreover, the current interim mayor, Tony Lloyd, is accountable to only ten people (his cabinet), who put him in into the job and are responsible for delivering his agenda. Seemingly, the minutes of these meetings are not published and “journalists have to do FOI requests to discover who is making the decisions.” Regarding “health devolution” in Greater Manchester, Nandy says:

“Healthier Together”, disrupted collaboration that was already taking place between local areas, took little account of the reality of people’s lives, and pursued hospital closures and centralization of services…asking people to travel long distances on non-existent transport networks when they already struggled to afford fares on low incomes…The risk is that decisions will be made in central Manchester with towns and rural areas just an afterthought.”

Research by the Fabian Society, using focus groups, carried out between September-October 2016, into public attitudes towards health devolution in Greater Manchester, found that people wanted local input into healthcare but not at the expense of equality. Though broadly sympathetic towards the idea of investing in prevention, most participants were keen to avoid a ‘post-code’ lottery of healthcare and some wondered what would happen to healthcare in Greater Manchester, if the money ran out or was mismanaged. Most participants supported uniformity over variability. Few participants had heard of ‘healthcare devolution’ nor understood what devolution meant.  All groups considered newly elected mayors as unfit to oversee healthcare and generally felt that decisions about healthcare should be left to experts. 

A YouGov survey – “HEALTH LOCALISM: what the English public thinks”, carried in October 2016, found that “Only 9% of people believed that councils and councillors should have the most say on local healthcare.” While evidence from the focus groups, indicated a certain un-enthusiasm about residents having more say in decision-making, the national YouGov poll, wanted residents to have more say.

While the people of Greater Manchester are being asked to vote for a metro-mayor next month, it seems that few really understand what they are voting for or how they got Devo Manc in the first place. Like mushrooms, they have been kept in the dark and fed shit. But as Richard Vize points out in the Fabian policy report, “With a mixture of mayors, combined authorities, councils and health service structures involved, it is hardly surprising that few people have a clear idea of what it all means.”

The secrecy, obfuscation, and lack of transparency, as well as the failure by the political elite of Greater Manchester in their ‘Labour one-party states’, to engage with the public and to spell out what services are going to be delivered and how, only exacerbates the problem. 

Housing, People & Regionalism in the UK

by Brian Bamford  

AT the Green Gathering in the Methodist Hall Oldham Street in Manchester, last Saturday, Dr. Roz Fox from Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU), a qualitative analyst, said: 

'The city of Manchester is the fastest growing city outside of London, and there have been interim talks about the city needing 200,000 homes by 2030.'  The academic  argued that 'housing is not just about bricks and mortar, but more importantly 'about people; the local labour market; land availability and social facilities.'   

This all has now to be accomplished in an era of public service cuts and an increasingly ageing population.  

This has to happen at a time when devolution is becoming fashionable.  According to Dr. Fox, the challenges now are what type of properties are required, and most important how do with involve people in the decision-making.   

Meanwhile, last Tuesday, in Haringey civic centre councillors were heckled while debating plans to rip communities apart, and hand control to a private entity.  Aditya Chakrabortty wrote about the Haringey case on Friday 20th, January 2017:  'At its heart is a programme that is among the most audacious I've ever seen.  Haringey wants to privatise huge swaths of public property: family homes, school buildings, its biggest library.  All of it will be stuck in a private fund worth £2bn.'  The fear is that areas of north Manchester between Bury, Rochdale and Oldham something rather similar is in danger of happening as armies of protesters gather to protect what they perceive as the threat to the Green Belt. 
In an article about anti-social behavior in the North East, Neil Tweedie in the Mail on Saturday last November, claimed that 'Grimsby is a long way from the oak-paneled conference rooms of the government departments in Whitehall...' but that 'Cameron's project to "cure" Broken Britain (started in 2011) ' had cost '£450m' and it had 'achieved nothing-apart from exposing Whitehall incompetence, deceitful councils, the vanity of politicians... and how they squander YOUR money'.

Regions of the UK

In England, the culture of centralism dominates in a strange way of a kind of surburban relationship and attachment to London.  In 1905, the novelist Henry James declared:  'All England is in suburban relation (to London).'  
Since the beginning of the 20th Century the south and particularly London have come to dominate the English economy and culture.  The historian, Tristram Hunt, in concluding his book 'Building Jerusalem' (2004) wrote:  'The corporate and financial stampede southward was quickly followed by the political parties, the media (including the Manchester Guardian), the professional establishment (from lawyers to doctors to accountants to architects), the cultural elite, even the representatives of organised labour.' 
Centralisation is the problem confronting this country.  One or two comments last week, on this NV Blog suggested that DevoManc, as it is now being presented, is a top-down phenomena.  
The regions and localities of the England, unlike Scotland, lack the self-confidence and imagination required to promote a bold self-identity that could compare with provinces in France or the regionalism on the Spanish peninsular.  Notions of federalism seem alien in the English regions. 
I think that in Northern Voices' we have identified a broad North-South dichotomy, but the various particular regions lack confidence and up to now have had a provincial insecurity in relation to the metropolis that is London. 
This has not always been the case, Tristram Hunt again in 'Building Jerusalem' wrote:  'In the Victorian era, that metropolitan imperialism appeared out-dated as the great northern civilisations established themselves as core components of the cultural firmament.' 
Neither the Green Gathering last Saturday nor the Andy Burnham Manifesto Meeting last Thursday tackled this problem of building an awareness of regional identity, although in the workshops of the Burnham meeting it was asked 'How do we change mind-sets?'.

The Future of Federalism in the UK?

In France the French Revolution finished off the work of Louis XIV and gave France a powerful highly centralised state.  In Spain the Liberal Revolution imitated this development.  Then in both countries came a reaction to this centralisation with movements for greater local and municipal liberty. 
In France this reaction was best expressed by Pierre Joseph Proudhon, who put forward those ideas which, he believed, the French Revolution had come into existence to fulfil, but which had been diverted by the ruthless political action of the Jacobins. 
In Spain, with its intense provincial feelings and local patriotisms, one would have expected the movement towards decentralisation to be even greater,but because of the consequences for Spain after the Napoleonic Wars and the fact that Carlism drew into its ranks many of the forces of resistance to Liberal centralism, these feelings didn't for some time make their appearance among the parties of the Left.  Only as an result of the work of Pi y Margall, a Catalan, who knew and understood the social and political ideas of Proudhon, did he grasp that these ideas best suited the aspirations of his countrymen.  It was through the efforts of Pi y Margall that the Federal movement in Spain grew in the 1860s.  
Unlike France and Spain, no such popular radical movement to express the local and regional spirit in a federalist manner has yet developed in England.  This may be because as an island we have been isolated from the continental currents which are still prevalent in Europe.  It may be because anarchism and organised regionalism, have been half-baked traditions.  Marxism, even though the Communist Party itself has never caught on in Britain, has had a wider influence in the universities than anarchism or federalism.

Greater Manchester Trades Councils condemn 'Devo Manc'

Monday 26th October - Manchester Town Hall - From 8.00am onwards

Lobby of Communities & Local Government Parliamentary Select Committee in Manchester 

'DEVO MANC' campaigners condemn Parliamentary Select Committee's proposals to provide 2.8 million people with just one hour to "share their thoughts and experiences", and for the Committee to "gather evidence" from them, on the extensive devolution deal announced between the Government and Greater Manchester Combined Authority almost a year ago, and which now includes the NHS.

The campaigners, who are seeking a wider public debate, consultation, and scrutiny of the controversial Devo Manc devolution deal, and who are wanting a Greater Manchester wide referendum on any new governance arrangement before it is implemented, say the one hour time allocation for the entire 2.8 million population of Greater Manchester to give evidence to their 'Devolution Bill Inquiry', makes "a complete mockery of democracy" and continues in the same vein as the 'Devo Manc' agreement between The Chancellor and Greater Manchester's 10 local Council leaders, in that "it shows nothing but contempt for the public" throughout the entire exercise.
Speaking on behalf of the cross party and trades union supported Greater Manchester Referendum Campaign for democratic devolution, Greater Manchester TUC President Stephen Hall said:
'That the Parliamentary Select Committee, meeting at Manchester Town Hall on Monday 26th October from 8.50pm until noon, will only be providing an hour for the public of Greater Manchester Public to 'provide evidence' and 'share their thoughts', which the publicity for it says is 'crucial' to inform the Committee's inquiries, is quite simply outrageous, and beggars belief. Surely, if the Select Committee was even slightly serious, they could at the very least extend their proceedings to an afternoon session to allow more submissions from the general public, and from civic and community groups including the trades unions?
'Though this would still not do the Greater Manchester devolution issue or the wider public the justice they deserve, such a step would at least allow more people and organisations from Greater Manchester to submit evidence, and for their views on the issue to be heard by the committee, rather than just the small 'Bubble' of locally based professional politicians, local Government bureaucrats and 'business leaders' who are likely to be the only ones who will get any kind of hearing.
'As it stands the Parliamentary Select Committee meeting in Manchester appears to us as nothing other than a poorly contrived and disguised cosmetic exercise, to make it look like that the people of Greater Manchester have some kind of input into this whole shoddy, undemocratic so-called devolution process, when the reality is the very opposite. It is also part farcical in that almost a year on, most of our local MPs and Councillors don't even know the precise details of the proposed new set up, especially in relation to the NHS and social care, other than in general, it won't involve either them or the very people of the English regions it is alleged to empower.
'As the public session of the event is already fully booked up, the reality is, other than for a no doubt pre-selected few, who might get to say something for more than five minutes, the rest of the people of Greater Manchester will again get no say whatsoever.
"From that point of view, given how few people are likely to be involved in the proceedings from the Greater Manchester area, and the likely huge cost of the Select Committee, and its accompanying entourage, coming to and holding its meeting in Manchester, one has to wonder why they didn't just agree to buy those few people rail tickets to travel to London and hold their meeting in Parliament instead, as it would surely cost a lot less to the public purse, and likely have all the same people participating in the proceedings anyway. In fact why they are bothering to have a meeting at all? It is no far off a complete charade as it stands!
'We believe as a very minimum, that in order for the Parliamentary Select Committee to do its work in what most of us might consider a serious way, that as well as extending its sitting on the 26th at Manchester Town Hall to include an afternoon session to receive further submissions from the public, they should also make a tour of all ten local authority areas in Greater Manchester, and extend their timing there to also include further sessions in the afternoon to which local civic and community groups, local charities, the unions, political parties, and business organisations, as well as the wider public, might be especially invited to submit evidence, and their views on what the so-called 'Northern Powerhouse' and 'devolution' means for them. 

Failing that, one has to wonder why they even bothering with the pretence of even asking what local people's views are.'

Stephen Hall,  President, Greater Manchester Association of Trades Union Councils

Devo Manc. Meeting

THE FLYING HORSE HOTEL

THE FUNCTION ROOM

37 PACKER STREET, ROCHDALE OL16 INJ

SATURDAY 19TH SEPTEMBER, 2015

2.30 pm - 4.30 pm

Speakers:

Speakers from GMATUC, Rochdale MBTC &

Greater Manchester Referendum Campaign

ALL WELCOME

The Chancellor, George Osborne

has described it as 

'A Revolution in Government'.

� Ex-Labour Leader, Ed Miliband

said the NHS aspect of it is 

'Devolving a funding crisis'.

� Labour leadership contender Andy Burnham

has said it could lead to a 'Swiss Cheese NHS'

� Wigan MP Lisa Nandy has described it as:

'Devolution by diktat' and as 

'Showing contempt for the public'

Labour leadership contender Jeremy Corbyn has

called it 'A cruel deception, which involves little more than

devolving the ability to impose public spending cuts'.

�The Manchester City Council website says:

'Things are going to be so much better'

WHATEVER it is, Greater Manchester Devolution a.k.a Devo Manc, along with the

creation of a so-called 'Northern Powerhouse', is taking place right now, without

most people even knowing about it. It is being imposed on the 2.8 million people

of Greater Manchester without any proper public consultation, scrutiny or debate,

and without the vast majority of people having any idea how it will affect them,

what its potential consequences might be, and whether they like it or not.

How it can be described as 'empowering' the people of the

English regions or as being in any way democratic. is simply absurd.

The Greater Manchester Referendum Campaign draws support from across

the political spectrum. The campaign believes than any devolution of genuine

powers to the regions; how those regions are defined; and any new proposed

system of administration or governance that might go along with it (such as an

elected Mayor or a regional assembly, or in the case of the NHS, any new

administrative body or bodies) must be the subject of the widest possible

public involvement, scrutiny and debate, and also be accompanied by a

referendum of all those affected, on the final proposed set up, for it to

have a genuine popular mandate or legitimacy. We reject the imposition of

any new arrangement which does not provide for such public involvement,

and which does not have such a popular mandate, and legitimacy.