If the idea of directly elected civic leaders is ever allowed to be taken seriously in Scotland, the first predictable “row” will be about what to call them. So let’s get that one out the way quickly.

For domestic purposes, they can be provosts and externally they will be mayors which is the globally recognised term, from Peking to Paris, Kyiv to New York. That matters – for we are competing with the world and how a city is perceived and is represented; how it looks and feels are all crucial to its standing and economic pull.

Having settled that matter, let’s look at the substance of the argument. The most obvious immediate case study is Glasgow which is, by common consent, a mess. Most dangerously, it shows no sign of being a short-term mess. Instead, it appears to have entered a spiral of decline that saddens and angers in equal degree.

Sauchiehall Street has become an emblem of that condition but, of course, it goes far, far deeper and wider than that. It is a great city which cries out for leadership to turn it around. But where is that leadership to come from? I doubt if many would answer that question with the name “Susan Aitken”.

However, the case for directly-elected mayors is much bigger than party politics. Indeed, a large part of its attraction is that direct elections are capable of upsetting even the most entrenched one-party hegemonies. Electing an individual leader with a specific vision is significantly different from a system which relies solely on party loyalties.

Rudy Giuliani won as a Republican in staunchly Democrat New York and, regardless of his subsequent fall, is universally hailed as the leader whose “zero tolerance” approach turned things round. There have been many examples of an individual breaking through in spite of party, rather than because of it – or indeed having come from outside party politics.

This is because the question asked is different from the one which will be posed by the ritual of council elections in May. These are little more than a mini-national opinion poll, attracting a third of voters on a good day, and throwing up whoever a party cares to offer. Leadership does not come into it. Voting for the party in council elections is not the only form of local democracy that should be countenanced, as if it was established in holy grail.

In contrast, in a directly-elected contest, the question is specifically about leadership. We do not have to look far from our own borders to find success stories and it is overdue for the same question to be asked here. Who is capable of calling out the mess, working across party lines, making demands of governments regardless of politics, standing up for the city or region, raising its profile internationally by making a statement about what it stands for?

Can anyone remotely claim this is what the current system throws up for Glasgow? Historically, the city has been well served by Lord Provosts who have carried the role with dignity. The extent to which they have been small ‘p’ political as opposed to ceremonial has varied, dependent on the individual. But they are not expected to fulfil the same role as directly-elected mayors. In Scotland, nobody is.

One of Glasgow’s problems over the past five years has been an administration and leader whose loyalties are blatantly to their party more than the wellbeing of the city. The cuts which have been acquiesced in are more sustained than in the darkest days of Mrs Thatcher but have been accepted and implemented without a whimper. There is no sense of vision.

It is inconceivable a directly-elected champion of the city – regardless of label – would have been so meek. Apart from anything else, he or she would know re-election depended on visibility and taking on all-comers. For example, Sauchiehall Street being a symbol, would the silence of the grave – no plan, no summit, no calling-out of dereliction’s enablers – have been an option? Of course not – any more than in Manchester or Liverpool.

England and Wales have two breeds of directly elected mayors. It is an option for smaller local authorities to introduce the office and that could easily be enacted here too. However, there are also seven Metro-Mayors with additional powers over matters such as economic development, planning and transport, covering more than one local authority area.

This raises another really important question for Scotland. There has been no reform of local government for 30 years when the Tories closed down the regions and districts, which had worked pretty well, and created a single-tier system with boundaries carefully drawn to keep the more prosperous suburbs, particularly of Glasgow, outside city limits.

Metro-Mayors for our major city-regions would recognise that it is impossible to plan on a single authority basis. Keep the small councils if it is too controversial to touch them but also recognise it is in their voters’ interests as much as those within urban boundaries to have flourishing cities which are the engines of an economy rather than crumbling relics of another age.

All this, of course, is complete anathema to Scottish nationalists whose whole mentality is geared to centralising control in Edinburgh and keeping every purse-string under their own influence. Subservient local authorities suit them very well. As one of their luminaries once put it: “Scotland is our localism”.

However, that is not the reality for people who see powers and resources being sucked out of their communities and money drip-fed back in through innumerable funds and initiatives, all labelled as Scottish Government largesse. Directly-elected mayors (even if they were called provosts) would be the stuff of nightmares as points of challenge to the concept of Scotland as a single entity under a single party.

On the other hand, I don’t see why the concept should not be promoted by Labour. It is radical. It is democratic. For England and Wales, it was introduced by the Labour government in 2000. Equally, I am certain it would be popular across party lines. People can see around them the failure of non-leadership. We deserve an alternative that already exists around the world.

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