CUMBRIA’S GRAVY TRAIN MAYOR

ANYONE in Cumbria dazzled by local newspaper headlines about Devolution and an elected Mayor should bear in mind the vulgar annual costs required to keep these vast Gravy Trains on the rails.

If you think getting a Mayor means a single bearded individual bellowing up your high street in a set of chains and a Tricorne hat doling out cash like some latter-day Father Christmas – think again.

They’re more likely to end up on the Cumbria Chronic’s Shit of the Year shortlist.

Mayors and Devolution means high pay and generous expenses; plush offices stuffed with bloated teams of over-paid Directors; legal wonks; HR droids; pen-pushers; cushion plumpers; facilitators; administrators; note-takers and non-jobbers.

The new Mayor’s office will also require endless glossy reports; feverish news releases; expensive meaningless logos; slick websites; content-churning social media accounts; costly vanity photography; bland newsletters; and devoted PR hustlers.

In other words, the worst of Public Sector excess.

Then there are certain fuzzy-haired relics from our local Councils.

Those egocentric high-up Councillors who will be desperate to drain dry the Devolution teet. Are they already salivating about all the juicy talking shops, portfolios, chairmanships, boards and partnerships that the new Mayor will create.

Not every Councillor is an evil cheese, but too many are blinkered political egomaniacs with only their party’s interests at heart.

And knowing the culture of Crumbria’s Public Sector like we do, the creation of a new Mayor’s office here will see our suave and urbane Council execs clamouring to join.

With our unitary Council reorganisation here being a balls-aching disaster, many will be seeking a juicier number aboard the Mayoral Gravy Train, where life will be quieter.

Especially if it means bigger pay, pensions, and opportunities for “shirking from home”.

The last thing this County needs is precisely what we appear hell-bent on heading for.

You already pay for decision-making TWICE through your Council Tax.

A fat slice towards your Local Council, another slice to your local town or parish council (the most genuine councillors of all).

Do you really want to add an elected Mayor to your Council Tax bill?

Because it is evident that our local “newspapers” are going to spend the coming months cheerleading this costly new regime rather than pulling the wings off it.

So far, intrepid Churnalists on Scroogequest comics only seem interested in presenting one side of the story, which is why the Chronic goes off his rocker in the other direction.

We wouldn’t mind it, but the “story” being presented by our media is the one spoonfed to them by officialdom in Press Releases from the Government, Cumbrian Labour MPs, and our two councils: Crumberland & Wokemoreland.

Here are some recent “newspaper” headlines to illustrate the point:

DEVOLUTION WILL PUT POWER BACK IN THE HANDS OF LOCAL PEOPLE…CUMBRIAN RESIDENTS URGED TO VOTE ON COMBINED MAYORAL AUTHORITY…CUMBRIAN MAYOR ‘KEY’ TO UNLOCKING GROWTH’… CUMBRIA LABOUR LEADERS CALL FOR AN ELECTED MAYOR…CUMBRIA TAKES ONE STEP CLOSER TO AN ELECTED MAYOR…

The News & Scar made a half-arsed stab at writing up a: “All You Need To Know About A Cumbria Mayor”; although we lost the will to live around paragraph four.

Conclusion? Most of the ingredients contained in this article appear to have been cannibalised from the Government’s own official consultation document and then rushed into print as “news!”

Give the paper a Pulitzer!

Even regular Press Release aggregator, ‘Cumbria Slack’, got in on the act, telling readers in a clickbait headline: “Why Is Cumbria Set To Elect A Mayor In 2026?“

Answer? Cumbria Slack doesn’t seem to know itself.

Not mentioned ONCE in any of these articles were the gross wages, workforces, and running costs that a Mayor requires to build a fortress-like bureaucracy around his/her self.

Also unmentioned was the power of an elected Mayor to add some of these costs onto your annual Council Tax Bill!

So it’s worthwhile checking out some of the ridiculous sums involved in Mayoral Combined Authorities (MCA’s), of which there are already 13 around the country.

The figures below are merely the tip of the iceberg from just three Mayoral set-ups.

Cambridgeshire and Peterborough MCA paid its Labour Mayor £92,000 a year in allowances and expenses. The Chief Executive and directors trousered £1.3m. Overall, it had 43 employees requiring pay & cushy pensions (employer’s contribution 15.9%). It also shelled out £278,000 in Exit Packages for just TWO employees.

Greater Manchester MCA pays Labour Mayor Andy Burnham circa £115,000. It paid out £3.9m in exit packages in 2022-23. It’s planning to hike Council Tax bills for, among other reasons, “inflationary pay pressures!” It has circa20 committees. They include the Joint Clean Air Scrutiny Committee; the Air Quality Administration Committee, and the Clean Air Charging Authorities Committee.

(There doesn’t appear to be a Hot Air Committee. Maybe there should be!)

East Midlands MCA pays its chief exec £185,000 – nearly double that of the actual Mayor, Labour’s Claire Ward who is paid £93,000. There are EIGHT other directors paid up to £148,000 a year, including an Interim Director of Communications (PR Spinner). East Midlands MCA also has NINE committees – including the Appointments Panel; Business Advisory Board; Innovation Advisory Board and Investment Committee.

We’ll leave it there, for now.

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