Less is more

Eric Pickles, Communities and Local Government Secretary, has dropped plans to impose another layer of officialdom on Sheffield, Leeds, Bradford and Wakefield before voters have had their say.

The former leader of Bradford Council is known for his Yorkshire grit and straight talking, and the residents of those four cities will be grateful those attributes came to the fore.

Having hesitated over plans for merely "confirmatory" referenda after the positions had been created, the coalition Government now seems to have put the horse back in front of the cart, and agreed to give voters a say.

Elected mayors are a hugely controversial issue at a time when money is tight and the State is supposed to be cutting back on its layers of bureaucracy.

One of the highest profile mayors is Peter Davies, in Doncaster, who had no previous experience of local authority administration and where the Audit Commission has highlighted a number of problems.

The political turbulence in Doncaster is a compelling reason, but not the only one, why Ministers should consult the electorate first before imposing such a powerful individual on their democratic process.

One of the lessons of Labour's time in office is that simply holding more elections is not necessarily a recipe for good government.