Please use your referendum vote to oppose making the mayor here a directly elected office. An elected mayor would be remote, protected by a large PR team and minders and would relate to us by TV sound-bites and it would be hard to see him/her for proper discussion. It is too secretive. Even the present system is poor since all decisions are made by a single politician advised by his/her local government officers. The system doesn’t promote lively democratic debate. We need the old system of committees with power to make decisions and with councillors elected one per ward (with smaller and more numerous wards) and obliged to live in the ward they represent. Then people would actually know their democratic representative personally since they would be a near neighbour. The present system makes people feel that they have no influence on decisions. An elected mayor would make government more distant, not less!
I had the honour on Tuesday 24th April 2012 of leading the Funeral Service In Birmingham of this remarkable hero of the war in south-east Asia who then went on to work tirelessly for a reconciliation with Japan based on the truth. Japan apologised for harm done and the Emperor has, remarkably, honoured Major Malins with a high distinction which has only ever been bestowed on one other non-Japanese person: The Order of the Rising Sun with Gold and Silver Rays. The Japanese Ambassador His Excellency Keiichi Hayashi travelled from London to honour “his friend” by a warm speech in tribute to him which was very well received by Major Malins’ family and all the many people present including guards of honour from the Royal British Legion, the Burma Star Association and many, both Japanese and British, who have worked together to develop a robust friendship between our two nations and to express it in a special garden at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas.