So no directly-elected mayor for Nottingham. Not for the forseeable future, anyway.
Last week’s vote against having one can be read any number of ways, but the turnout in the Arboretum ward – a paltry 8.45% - offers a clue: one way or another, many voters just aren’t bothered about it.
May be they thought there wasn’t a lot to bother about. This wasn’t a well-sold or well-explained campaign, and (despite some daft rumours) wasn’t well-financed, either.
The mood music seems to be that there are bigger fish to fry. Which is pretty much what the Nottingham East MP, Chris Leslie, suggested before the vote.
A wise city council leadership won’t claim this as an emphatic endorsement of the current leader-and-cabinet system, though - 57% for No and 43% for Yes doesn’t tell us that.
Labour worked harder than the Yes campaign to mobilise a No vote, and won a postal vote with a turnout north of 65%. That’s an astonishing number against attitudes otherwise dominated by indifference.
But many of its voters look to have stayed at home on the day, which doesn’t suggest passionate endorsement of everything that comes out of Loxley House.
I said in previous blogs that there was an extremely important message underneath the backing for the Yes campaign, and it still stands. Though it wheeled out a couple of ‘trusties’, the No campaign was not able to demonstrate widespread business backing for the status quo. Such backing does not really extend beyond the pragmatism of a working relationship.
Influential sections of the city aren’t happy with the way things are run, whether it’s the service they get from the city council or the alleged failure to bat for Nottingham nationally and internationally. Their view, as Tim Garratt has pointed out elsewhere, is that the city doesn’t properly punch its weight and can sometimes be a three-course meal to work with.
That strikes me as harsh. There have been some massive successes – making the tram extension project happen against a background of significant public sector cutbacks was immense. No one can take that away from Labour.
But how did an ability to make such giant strides also translate into 10 whole years of stumbling around Broadmarsh? And of a once-in-a-lifetime development boom sailing straight past Eastside and Waterside? Even now, there is a major project in the city which has gone bafflingly quiet.
The relationship between the city leadership and Whitehall has been hit-or-miss. Notable achievements have been mixed with childlike spats (on both sides) and a stubborn refusal on the city’s part to come clean about some of its spending.
The result of these bouts of churlishness is the poke in the eye Nottingham got when it applied for a comparatively small amount of money to invest in ultra high-speed broadband. What should have been a straightforward economic decision became a political one.
Local MPs have hesitated to raise Nottingham’s case in the House of Commons because they know the city’s attitude is going to be thrown back at them. Some were also livid at the conduct of the No campaign, particularly after ‘leafletgate’. There have been long-running frictions between the Labour party nationally and the party in Nottingham.
Away from politics, these grudging undercurrents are what bother some very senior business people – that, and an apparent belief that community comes first. If it comes first, why not invest more heavyweight political capital in attracting the investment and the programmes that could deliver the growth community needs, they wonder? If the council really wants the jobs and growth it so regularly campaigns for, why doesn’t it back the people who can deliver it to the hilt?
Life before May 2010 is gone. There will be no return to big government spending, no Building Schools for the Future budget to wield, even if a blundering coalition throws in the towel tomorrow. And there is no regional development agency to give a paternalistic steer or oil the wheels of an investment inquiry.
One of the most telling – if coded - contributions to the mayoral debate came from Alan Simpson, the former Labour MP for Nottingham South. He dismissed the idea of a mayor out of hand, but offered sharp criticism of the city council, which he claimed lacked visionary leadership and risked dumping Nottingham into the second division.
Simpson is not an entirely disinterested party – he didn’t get on with the city leadership. But his criticism plays to another issue for Nottingham: it may have a vision in parts, but it doesn’t have a clear story to tell.
Let’s be clear – there is a lot happening in Nottingham and a lot is going to happen. The infrastructure development pipeline is significant, investment will take place in upgrading the city’s retail offer, we do keep appearing on the inquiry list for significant inward investments.
But these big opportunities beg a far more assertive approach to economic development which tells a compelling and original story about a powerful conurbation which leads a region – one where a walk through the door immediately tells you that you are in the company of ambitious people who know how to make things happen.
As someone said to me at MIPIM, the people, the opportunities and the conurbation are all there. But where is that single, powerful, unified vision?
If Nottingham really is serious about its place in the universe then there are some big decisions to make.
So how Nottingham organises itself as an economic entity will come back on to the agenda at some stage. If it is to compete for the government’s City Deal money it has to demonstrate there is a mechanism for joint action between neighbouring local authorities.
Businesses want a figurehead, and a compelling story about a big conurbation which is easy to work with. MPs wish some of the city’s politicking was driven by big picture vision rather than small-town spats. Some civil servants simply expect more of what should be a regional capital
We have some massive opportunities in this city. There are people who can deliver. There is a track record of achievement. Is the way forwards really that difficult?
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