Making Mayor-y

 

Last week I watched the Newcastle-under-Lyme Borough Council Mayor- making ceremony.  I also tuned in to the last one, never having witnessed one before.

The only idea I had of the process was governed by some historic records which had described how the Mayor should be chosen from the best within the community (women were not included).   But these were earlier and possibly better times.

By the 19th Century the whole procedure appears to have fallen into disrepute.  It was only after a hard-won fight that Joseph Mayer of Thistleberry (whose father, Samuel, became Mayor in 1833) claimed that his father was part of a ‘new regime’.  (Unfortunately, the Minutes of meetings over which his father presided, did not seem to bear this out.)

Joseph Mayer went on to produce a pamphlet in 1833  describing these mock ceremonies in unflattering and Swiftian terms, indicating that the closed system needed to change if it was to retain its credibility.  The description was accompanied by a painting, depicting the mock Mayor-making ceremonies as drunken brawls, usually performed in public, after the official ceremony had taken place.

The ceremonies I witnessed in the new (ish) Civic Offices appeared as more sedate affairs.  However the issues, which caused Joseph Mayer to take up his pen, appeared unchanged.  The election of Mayor was very much internal, appeared predetermined, and was a political rather than a civic process.  

In 2024 the then newly appointed Mayor claimed to have been elected unopposed. The ruling political Party which happened to be Conservative had little if any opposition at the time, we are led to believe.

This year the order had changed to Reform who put forward their own candidate in opposition to the Conservative Party nomination.  The Mayor was/is not elected by the electorate.  (But then these days, neither is the Prime Minister elected by the electorate.)  Thus, both processes appear to have become internal and closed affairs once again, even though both are financially supported by the public purse.   The reform Party candidate received the most votes, the Conservative Party candidate (Cllr Joan Whieldon) was (block) voted against by Reform and some of the rest, it seems (if they didn’t abstain).  Thus the rump Conservative contingent were outvoted, and now rendered powerless.          

One can only wonder what Joseph Mayer might have made of these two occasions had he been a fly on the wall? Plus ca change … .

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