JAMES Birch complains (Letters, November 11) that a majority of 622 people (0.07 per cent of the electorate) failed to procure an elected executive mayor for Bolton.
In the days when the Labour Movement had more regard for rules and procedures than it apparently does now, a major constitutional proposal of this significance would require not merely a simple majority, but the support of 75 per cent of all of those eligible to vote, it being deemed in the absence of such levels of support that there is insufficient majority for constitutional change.
Clearly, most of the population is not in the slightest interested in such an idea. Not surprising.
A senior colleague in a Yorkshire authority said to me a couple of years ago “If you are thinking about having an elected executive mayor, I have one simple word of advice for you. Don’t! “We've got one, and you can’t keep tabs on the blighter (not the precise word he used) and if we can’t keep tabs on him, what chance has the ordinary punter ?" Says it all, really.
Peter Johnston Kendal Road Bolton
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