Don’t back plans for elected mayors says Livingstone

The veteran Labour candidate – who was Mayor of London for eight years before losing to Conservative rival Boris Johnson in 2008 – said yesterday he was “not persuaded” about the benefits of having directly-elected city mayors, and that he prefers the traditional council systems currently in place across much of the country.

Mr Livingstone said a mayoral system puts too much power in one person’s hands and can leave cities “stuck with a loser for four years”.

In a clear allusion to Mr Johnson’s popularity as a guest on television shows, he said politics was now all about “how funny you can be on a sofa at 9am”.

Addressing Parliament’s Press gallery, he said: “I’m still not persuaded of the mayoral system, because it concentrates a lot of power in one person’s hands.

“It’s easy to avoid serious scrutiny because the mayor always gets the last word at every meeting.”

He added: “The other weakness of this is it leads to a degree of celebrity politics, which means the issues go down the agenda.”

Mr Livingstone claimed that too many politicians are now elected “without ever having run anything”, which was why “Britain has been locked into decline”.

The Labour candidate said the Conservative Party was unhappy that Mayor Johnson “wasn’t doing the day job” and would have got rid of him if he was leader under a traditional council structure.

“The directly-elected mayor system means you get stuck with a total loser for four years and there is nothing you can do about it.”

Mr Livingstone’s views echo those frequently put forward by council leaders across Yorkshire ahead of the referendums in Leeds, Sheffield, Bradford and Wakefield on May 3.

But they are in stark contrast to those of Mayor Johnson, who told a Downing Street reception last month that having a directly-elected mayor has greatly rejuvenated London.