How has the pandemic affected the role of mayors?

SK One of the reasons why we weren’t as effective with this pandemic was there was too much command and control from the centre. My view is that mayors know their communities better, and had they been involved earlier, the results would have been less bad.

AS I think the pandemic showed the best and the worst of our system. Matt Hancock would use that link: what’s the situation in the West Midlands? What needs to happen? Sometimes, though, there was a tendency to make decisions in London, so the mayors found themselves as spokespeople for their regions. We did have to literally stand up and do the communications every single Friday for 18 months.

SK I think the government does understand that the mayors have a big role to play as people who are credible.

AS Nadhim Zahawi epitomised that didn’t he, as vaccines minister?

SK He was fantastic. Nadhim was very keen to let go and ask: how can I help you? My experience is, the more confident a minister is in their own skin, the more confident they are to work with you if you’re from a different party. Nadhim didn’t mind who got the credit; he just wanted there to be an increased take-up of the vaccine. There’s a nice moral to this story: if you let go, sometimes you get some of the stardust you deserve. Often, though, insecurity means ministers don’t want to let go. All I would say to them is that it’s not a zero-sum game.

AS Some would say it’s easier for me because I’m from the same party, but the thing that unites the mayors is we are here to help government achieve our shared objectives. Everyone knows we’ve got to green the public transport system, everyone knows that’s going to be expensive, everyone knows we have to bring private sector investment in, so that does require government and leaders of cities to come together.

SK I say to central government: treat us as allies, not adversaries. Devolve more powers and resources to us. Trust us. And, by the way, the benefit to you in the centre is better results. Voters are happy.

Tracy Brabin Marvin and I met when I was shadow secretary of state for digital, culture, media and sport. I was told that, of all the mayors in the country, Marvin was the most switched-on about culture.

Marvin Rees [Laughs] I’m seen as a bit of a cultural heathen in my city. I blew my credibility when I was asked what my favourite restaurant in Bristol was, and I said Nando’s. But, Tracy, I have a question for you. You’ve had a chance to be both a mayor and an MP. How do those two positions compare?

TB Well, I was MP for Batley and Spen for five years, and I could see so much need that I couldn’t address in opposition. Being a mayor feels like what being a minister must feel like. I’ve gone from a team of six as a shadow minister to a team of 700 in the combined authority. It’s very exciting to be able to act without having to wait for a new government.

MR I was living in the US in 2010, and a professor whose best friend was [former Democratic presidential contender] Howard Dean said: “Marvin, I think you might be more suited to executive politics than legislative.” Howard said that being a governor was much more stimulating than being a senator, because he got to do real things. We’ve got a different remit but the message we share is: get it done. You’re on the frontline every day.

TB I came into politics late in life, so I’m very impatient for change. I must say, I did ponder why Dan Jarvis has chosen to focus on Westminster when I know what he’s done as mayor for South Yorkshire. Until we get a Labour government, it’s going to be hard to make profound changes in your community.

MR Do you think the government really appreciates the potential of mayors? Or do they just see them as a distant, inconsequential power that should be focused on delivering national government policy?

TB I would have said they probably see them as an annoyance, given what happened during the pandemic, with Andy Burnham standing up for Manchester. I was in parliament at the time and it seemed like they were obsessed with him. But I think with Michael Gove [as secretary of state for levelling up, housing and communities], there was a new seriousness. I am hopeful that with pressure and support from [the shadow minister] Lisa Nandy, we could get more of an understanding. In the north, three out of five people are represented by a mayor, so for government to disregard the mayors does seem slightly crazy. That’s also why Keir Starmer has asked Gordon Brown to look into the constitution in the UK. People say: “How are we going to win back the red wall seats?” Well, we’re already in power in the red wall seats because the Labour mayors are delivering.

MR If I was a government minister, whenever I wanted to do something new, the first thing I’d do is ask the 11 core cities to meet me. In many ways, the world has outgrown the current model of governance, which is an over-reliance on national government, but I don’t think national government has caught up with that fact. The new model that we need to move into is one that has mayors as equal partners in shaping policy. Mayors weren’t given the space at Cop26 that I think they should have been. That was a massive missed opportunity.

TB I also think we’re champions for our region around the world – talking to other mayors, leaders and businesses.

MR We’re international players on a level that I don’t think people have understood. Straight after the Brexit referendum, I went over to Brussels. We have a lot of organisations in Bristol that need access, so what could we do as a city to keep these channels open? This kind of place-to-place diplomacy is growing. In Bristol, we’ve got 180 countries of origin, 92 languages, 45 religions. If we learn to use that diversity, we can represent global Britain in a way that national government is finding quite difficult.

TB As the only female metro mayor in the country, what’s also been useful is reaching out to other female mayors across the world.

You’ve had very different paths to the mayoralty. Why did you each decide to run?

TB Growing up in a council flat in Batley, and then being able to follow my dreams of being an actor, with no connections or family money, I understood that all that happened because of Labour governments: social security, social housing, free libraries, good education. Young people in Batley and Spen now don’t have the same life chances. I was a campaigner for devolution in parliament. I was looking around for a woman to support and realised that because of Covid we had to have someone with a bit of cut-through. Deciding to stand myself was quite terrifying, but I’m powered by that sense of injustice: some have opportunities and some don’t. Politics is fun as well. Using those skills of acting and writing to create social change is the gift that keeps on giving.

MR I’ve realised how many of my motivations actually come from my mum. My mum was a white woman in 1972, brown baby on the way. Before I was born, she was told that if she was a good person, she’d have me aborted. When she gave birth, a healthcare worker told her that if she was a good person, she’d give me up for adoption. I was aware that my brown self was a source of vulnerability for my mum. It was normal in the 80s for people to shout: “Go back to your country.” I’ve lived the best and the worst of my city. After university I thought, how can I make the world better? I’d sworn off politics because I thought it was corrupt and could not be saved. I worked for charities. I became a BBC journalist. I worked in mental health. Then I got involved in Operation Black Vote. I came back from the US in 2011 and did the Labour party Future Candidates Programme and they had a session on mayors. I didn’t go to it because I thought, why would anyone want to be a mayor? Then Bristol voted [in favour of] a mayor, and a councillor called Margaret Hickman said: “You should put yourself forward.” Kerry McCarthy, my local MP, came to support me, and I thought, what, so people genuinely believe in me? It took me a year before I could comfortably say to people, “Yeah, I’m the mayor of Bristol,” because I felt like an impostor.

TB There is that connection with your lived experience. When I was at university, a guy tried to rape me in the street. Trying to understand why it happened got me into feminism in the 80s and I found a real sense of belonging in the women’s movement. I absolutely know that the work I’m now doing as police and crime commissioner, putting the safety of women and girls at the centre of everything we do, is connected to that incident. I often say to young people that what you think is the worst time in your life can potentially be the rocket fuel that gets you to a better place.

Why did you both want to run for mayor?

AB I guess it was linked to my journey through Westminster. It was never my natural habitat. I had to learn to live there, as a lot of people from a more working-class background do, but then you get a number of years in, and think: am I being myself here? And am I doing what I want to do? The parliamentary system can make a fraud out of people because it asks them to do and say certain things. I hit a fork in the road where I had to decide whether to be true to myself or to toe the line. I developed a degree of independence. When I first heard the role of Greater Manchester mayor was coming, I dismissed it, but I found myself coming back to it and thinking it may well be right for me, and it has been. I’ve found it quite liberating and energising. You can do more, of more immediate relevance to people, than you ever can in the Westminster system. I was falling out of love with politics, and it’s brought me back to what it’s all about.

JA I had no ambition to be mayor at all. I think I’ve ended up as mayor for strange reasons. First of all, I and other women in the region were furious that there were no female leaders represented in the combined authority. I’d been really active in the trade union movement when I was younger, and I was on a fast track into political life but rejected it because I found it quite frustrating. It’s what you were saying, Andy – being told what to say. It turned me against politics. As a local councillor, I was frustrated about the lack of ability to change anything. I saw my city in real peril. I knew I had the thick skin to do the role. I knew what I was letting myself in for. Coming to that role with my whole professional experience behind me, I was quite secure in myself.

AB I feel that’s ideal, because the role requires a combination of personality and perspective. In the end, it is place first rather than party first. Obviously you have that loyalty, but if you start with “my party, right or wrong”, I think you’ll end up not doing the job properly. You could argue that you landed in the job, but actually it was the right path.

JA I don’t like grandstanding, I don’t like political point-scoring, I don’t like engaging in behaviours that politicians engage in. You can tell I haven’t been a politician my whole life. I’m only prepared to be myself. It’s too late to change.

What about the future?

JA My job is timebound. The secretary of state is putting city officials all out for election in 2023. We couldn’t have the referendum that we’d committed to on the mayoral role because it would have cost half a million pounds. We felt the best thing to do was a consultation. The options are committee model, leader model or mayoral model. I’ve pledged to stay out of it. I’ll let the city decide. There’s a Caribbean holiday in 2023 if I’m not the mayor. [Laughs]

AB I’ve said very plainly that I will be serving a full second term.

JA You’re still very young Andy, aren’t you? [Laughs] Very young.

AB I don’t feel it! These roles do age you a little, don’t they? If anything brought me into politics in the first place, it was growing up in the north-west in the 80s: Moss Side, Toxteth, the miners’ strike, Hillsborough. And then I go to Cambridge University. I’ve always believed there are two worlds in this country. The issue is how you change the way the country works with regard to fairness and justice for the regions, and particularly the north. The status quo has been challenged more than it’s ever been challenged before, and I think that’s down to how the mayors have been working together. Bearing that in mind, it doesn’t follow that I’m just waiting to get back to Westminster. The notion that drives speculation is that Westminster is the only show in town.

JA I don’t have experience of Westminster. Sitting in a room with a load of Tories has never been on my to-do list. During Covid, when I was a local councillor, I thought the city council would be able to give me a list of people in need and a list of people who could help, and I’d marry them up. And I realised that we were too big as a local authority and we had to do it at a community level. And I suppose it applies on a grander scale to the regions and Westminster. I’ve always been a big supporter of devolved authority.

AB I think British politics took a wrong turn in the 80s, completely hollowing out local government. That has served us badly over the last three decades, and it wasn’t reversed enough by the government that I was in. I like to think that this new generation of mayors are changing something, and it would feel odd to me to abandon it and go back to the old world of Westminster, which is actually the place that needs to change.

Source: The Guardian

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