In view of the former Mayor of Greater Manchester (2017-2026), Andy Burnham, ‘s new position as Prime Minister (20 July 2026), it’s good to look back. The consequences of Burnham’s regional outlook on the reorganisation of government in the U.K. are examined by Colin Talbot in a piece published on 10th August 2026, ‘Can Andy Burnham Really Rewire the UK State?‘ (Constitutional Society).
In two pieces published eleven and seven years ago, I looked at the newly created and unfolding role of regional mayors. In 2015, I asked a series of questions, in ‘Democracy in action? Directly Elected Mayors in England’
One way with which to check these incursions has been a continued scaling down of democratic institutions, a return to localism, favoured by activists on the fringes and mainstream political parties: communities and neighbourhoods becoming keywords in political discourse from the 1990s. Is this trend, identified as New Localism, to become a permanent feature of the British political system and part of the “quiet democratic Revolution”? Will the local demos become the new locus for democratic reassertion in the face of globalisation, a training-ground for political leadership, bringing in new generation and quality of political actors, “new sites of power”, “an important new route into politics for people from different backgrounds”? Does scale matter? What is the ideal size for effective political representation? Boundary commissions work ceaselessly to define the demographic-geographic limits for each parliamentary constituency, in an attempt to maintain fairly equal numbers per seat (average 95,000 population and 70,000 voters). Can the debate opposing direct democracy to representative democracy be decided numerically? Is there a cut-off point at which direct elections no longer appear to be attractive to the voter? Might it be said that representative democracy is in crisis and that directly elected mayors are part of a phenomenon that represents a major challenge for national parliaments?
I furthered the reflexion on this new trend in 2019 in ‘Bristol fashion ? Leadership and local politics in England and the power of democratically-elected mayors : an epiphenomenon or a national trend ?’
The power and status of democratically elected mayors in England is a question which is beginning to emerge as a new dimension in national politics in Britain. Whilst the direct election of mayors by cities in the UK was limited to the capital (from 2000), the personalisation of politics appeared to be specific to this example in the personae first of Ken Livingstone then of Boris Johnson. By the end of the 2000s, the New Localism trend, was predicted to become a permanent feature of the British political system and part of the “quiet democratic Revolution”, and it seemed likely that “the local demos [would] become the new locus for democratic reassertion in the face of globalisation” and “an important new route into politics for people from different backgrounds”. What emerged with other major cities directly electing their mayors in the following decades is the continuation and extension of that phenomenon.
