AS a former resident of Craven (though not one always impressed by the performance or sagacity of the district council), I am sympathetic to Councillor Andy Brown’s objections (Craven Herald online July 23) to the imposition of a unitary authority for North Yorkshire and the installation of an elected mayor.
There are strong arguments for having a medium-sized authority that exists at that ‘sweet spot’ between strategic oversight and local accountability.
However, to allow ourselves to think that such matters are of any concern to the present government would be to be conned into seeing this cynical stratagem through (in Churchill’s memorable phrase) the wrong end of a municipal drainpipe. There is one overriding reason why the Johnson government wants large unitary ‘shire’ counties with mayors - it is to counterbalance and help hold in check the rising political profile and growing moral authority of elected mayors in metropolitan counties such as Greater Manchester and West and South Yorkshire.
If you wish to identify the Johnson government’s reasons for adopting any particular policy, you will almost invariably find them in the icy realms of cold political calculation, not the temperate zone of the people’s common interests.
Glyn Turton
Emeritus Professor
Baildon
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