In 1998, British prime minister Tony Blair was bullish about his government’s vision for local democracy in London. A city-wide referendum had just firmly endorsed New Labour’s plan to give London a mayor. Though only a third of the electorate turned out, 72% of them were in favour – much healthier than the 50% of Welsh voters who ensured, by a hair’s breadth, the creation of their devolved assembly the year before.
Blair held up the UK’s capital city as a trailblazer. “Once they see how much London is benefiting from having a mayor,” he predicted, “I am confident that people in many other cities and towns of Britain will want to follow.”
Two years later, and a quarter of a century ago this year, Blair’s government created the London mayoralty, the Greater London Authority (GLA) and the London Assembly. Since then, the mayoralty has become, in the words of local government expert Tony Travers, one of the “biggest prizes in British politics”. Former prime minister Boris Johnson, who was mayor from 2008 to 2016, embodies the career-boosting potential of the office.
