News / Politics
Six of the best line up to be new metro mayor
After being a no-show at a hustings on Wednesday night, the following morning saw Arron Banks turn up to WECA HQ in Redcliffe to be officially confirmed for the first time as the mayoral candidate for Reform.
“This is my local area and it’s in a hell of a mess,” Banks told Bristol24/7, saying that he would audit the combined authority’s three constituent councils “to make sure they stop spending money on stupid things and start spending money on services that people actually want”.
Banks said that the left-wing vote is split with his job “to take the vote from the Tories in the leafy countryside areas. I think being the only serious businessman in the race who has actually run something and can do things will appeal to quite a lot of Conservative voters.”
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So what of his potential support in Bristol? “I think there’s more support for Reform than you would imagine. Bristol is a bit like Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities, it’s very easy to think it’s a beautiful city when you’re wandering around Redcliffe, Redland and Clifton, but there are serious problems in the city. I think both Labour and the Greens have failed the city pretty badly.”
Arron Banks is Reform’s candidate for metro mayor – photo: Martin Booth
One of current mayor Dan Norris’ innovations during his term of office has been to change the name of the organisation that he heads from the West of England Combined Authority to the West of England Mayoral Combined Authority.
It’s a subtle change (much more subtle than his giant face that he wanted to put on the side of buses) but it’s an important one because it signifies that WECA – sorry, WEMCA, is headed up by an elected mayor.
So who are runners and riders wanting the top job? Six candidates will be on the ballot paper on May 1 and also feature in a booklet that will be dropping through letterboxes within the next couple of weeks.
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There are currently no bookmakers’ odds, but if there were Labour’s Helen Godwin could well be the favourite. The former Bristol cabinet member was unwilling to say, however, that she is the frontrunner: “I wouldn’t say that. I think it’s an interesting race. We have got six candidates now and the region is diverse. We have different parties in power in different places. I’m very confident that my offer is the strongest offer.”
Another former Bristol councillor in the race is Steve Smith, who was also lord mayor while representing the Conservatives in Westbury-on-Trym & Henleaze ward.
Smith has already made a key part of his campaign to represent downtrodden car drivers. “I’m hearing from people all the time who are really distressed about what’s being done to them by their councils, whether that’s imposing bus gates and low traffic neighbourhoods in Bath, whether it’s the East Bristol Liveable Neighbourhood, closing Park Street, bus lanes on the A4 Keynsham bypass, what I’m hearing from people across the West of England is we didn’t ask for this and we don’t want this, and that’s why I will be standing up against it.”
To complete the trio of Bristol faces in the mayoral race is Mary Page, previously a Lib Dem candidate for Bristol mayor, then one of the leaders of the successful campaign to scrap the mayor and now representing the Green Party.
So why should the people of Bristol trust someone like Page who stood for a different party for mayor before deciding that the role needed to be scrapped and now pinning her colours to a different mast? Page answered with a dig at a recent gaffe by Bristol North West MP Darren Jones.
“That’s like comparing Pips payments to pocket money,” Page said, adding that “the fact is that these issues are completely chalk and cheese”. Page said that she has always valued democracy, the environment and equality: “I haven’t changed my politics. I have just refocused my priorities.”
Page said her former party “has no plan” for transport, something which Lib Dem candidate Oli Henman, a Bath & North East Somerset councillor disagrees with. “We have seen ineffective mayors in the past and we need a change,” Henman said.
Not long ago, the Lib Dems were in power in Bristol. Now they only have eight councillors. But Henman said that Lib Dems “have never been stronger in the region”, including having key committee positions within Bristol City Council’s new committee system (but only because Labour refused them).
The one independent in the race is Ian Scott, a South Gloucestershire councillor who was expelled from Labour after 40 years when he announced his candidacy. He has had to spend £5,000 of his own money on the deposit all candidates need to pay in order to confirm they are standing, and said he will not be spending any more money on leaflets.
“My campaign is completely different from any campaign you will probably ever see,” Scott said. “I have got no election leaflets, I won’t be making any annoying telephone calls to you, I won’t do any inconvenient door knocking on a Sunday morning. I have got no election funds, I don’t want any election funds. My hope is people will look me up on search engines, see what I’ve said on my Facebook page.”
Main photo: Martin Booth
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