.

The economic argument in the UK can be boiled down to this: Are we in a government deficit crisis which, while its being reduced, is leading to a weakness in demand or, do we face a demand crisis which is making it harder to reduce the deficit.

Either way, while the deficit is a problem for the long-term health of the economy, so is unemployment.

And, according to NIESR’s report this morning, persistently weak demand is maintaining high unemployment, and may lead to a permanently higher rate of joblessness.

The National Institute of Economic and Social Research report says:

“The weakness in demand this year is expected to translate into a 0.3 per cent fall in the level of employment.

“This adds around ½ percentage point to the current unemployment rate, peaking at 8.9 per cent in the fourth quarter of 2012, and a slow decline starting from 2013.

“Although we do not report forecasts for the youth unemployment rate, we expect it to continue to rise throughout the rest of this year.

“In our forecast there is a permanent increase in the equilibrium unemployment rate as a consequence of the increase in long-term unemployment experienced in recent years.

“By 2016 it will gradually decline to 6.4 per cent, which is still almost 1 percentage point above the pre-crisis level.”

NIESR also find there may also be a structural loss in productivity:

“Productivity in the first quarter of this year is still 1½ per cent below the level prior to the onset of recession. In the 1980s and 1990s, productivity was 13 and 15 per cent higher, respectively, at the same point in time. We do not expect any convergence on past productivity perfomance over the next few years.”

• Cameron is pricing the young out of education and consigning them to the dole queue 14 Dec 2011

• Record NEET figures the result of Osborne’s ignorant, short-sight ideology 24 Nov 2011

• Stories from the economy, or: The prospects for young people, and other grim tales 17 Nov 2011

• Million young unemployed figure highlights enormity of the situation hitting our youth 16 Nov 2011

• IMF: Cutting the deficit too fast causes higher unemployment 19 Sep 2011

The coalition has taken the view that the deficit needs to be reduced as quickly as possible, while implementing measures to reduce unemployment while necessary.

However, unless joblessness takes higher priority, fewer of us will be working to support more people on unemployment benefit, and the end of the hard times will be further from sight. The government shouldn’t ignore one long-term problem for the sake of another.

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Polls have just closed in the various elections and referendums across Britain; Britain Votes’s Tom Harris marks your card for the night and day ahead

If tonight is going to be your first experience of staying up to watch the national media’s election night coverage then I feel compelled to warn you of one thing – expect to get dizzy!

Seasoned election night watchers will know the spinning will know no limits as politicians of all colours try to put a positive glow on seemingly horrendous results.

The reason is that there are some fairly observable truths that mean simply making a net gain in seats this week doesn’t really mean a lot.

The seats which are to be contested tomorrow were last fought in 2008; this was a good year for the Conservatives (they gained 300 seats) and a bad one for Labour (they lost 434). Labour went on to post one of their lowest national vote shares in history two years after those elections and so a net gain of, say, 30 seats would not bode well.

• Vote 2012: An introduction to the various elections on May 3rd 17 Mar 2012

To try and help everyone stay sane I have tried to show what will constitute a good or a bad night for each of the main parties…

Labour

Local elections are a good gauge of an opposition party’s ability to turn good polling numbers into wins at the ballot box. Labour’s results last year certainly showed they were back to winning ways with an impressive net gain of more than 850 seats.

That raw figure is unlikely to be topped as there are fewer councils holding elections this year, but Labour are expected to make more gains in this cycle.

The main reason for this is their terrible performance in 2008; they lost 434 seats in 2008, many in traditional strongholds, so there is a lot of low hanging fruit around for Labour. A quick glance at South Wales will highlight a number of potential gains for Labour, which would mostly be at the expense of Plaid Cymru.

If Labour claw back all their 2008 losses they will be hovering around 2004 levels of support. Of course, they went on to win a comfortable Parliamentary majority one year after that round of local elections, although their advantage in the national vote was relatively narrow.

A net gain of 400 seats should be the minimum aim – Professors Rallings and Thrasher have set a benchmark of 700 for the party to justify their current polling levels. A haul of around 550-600 would be regarded as a good night.

However, no matter how many council seats they gain, and how many councils they take control of, it’s hard to imagine tomorrow being painted as a success by the media if they fail to capture City Hall from the Conservatives.

Boris v Ken Round II is, of course, a very personality driven contest and is not really representative of the rest of the country for a variety of reasons, but as it’s the second biggest individual mandate in Europe it will be big news. If Ken fails, as seems likely from the polling, any good work across England and Wales will be buried.

The other potential thorn in Labour’s side though is Scotland. Their awful performance / the SNP’s excellent performance (depending on who you ask) in last year’s Holyrood elections took a shine off Labour’s council gains and a repeat performance will be jumped on again.

What’s particularly dangerous for Labour here is that the SNP’s conservative nominating in the first Single Transferable Vote Elections for Scottish councils in 2007 means that simply running an extra candidate and getting the same vote share as last time is likely to net Alex Salmond’s party a number of seats.

Labour should still make moderate gains in Scotland, but a symbolic loss in Glasgow will not make good headlines.

Conservatives

The Tories managed to gain 300 seats in 2008, many of them in ordinarily ‘red’ areas, and so they face a difficult task defending these seats.

This time last year the negative media attention was focused on the Liberal Democrats, and their leader Nick Clegg in particular, and the Conservatives were shielded from the usual local election slump national governing parties suffer.

In fact, the Alternative Vote referendum managed to unexpectedly motivate their base, and this resulted in a surprise small net gain of council seats for the Tories.

This year things will not be the same; if May 2011 was Nick Clegg’s turn to get given a bloody nose from the electorate, then Cameron should be bracing himself for tomorrow night. Their national polling levels have nose-dived since the budget and they appear to be finally losing some of their general election voters.

If the Conservatives manage to hang onto a significant amount of their 2008 haul it will have been good night for them – in fact, limiting their losses to less than 300 combined with a win for Boris will certainly be regarded as a job well done.

Liberal Democrats

After last year’s results the Liberal Democrats must be feeling things can’t get much worse. They lost almost a quarter of their councillor base in one disastrous night, as well as any chance of Westminster electoral reform for the foreseeable future.

Their polling has bumped along the low teens ever since but the party’s, and their leader’s, negative media coverage has been surpassed by their senior coalition partners in recent months. Local by-election results also show the famed Lib Dem ground operation is still working well, but its remit will now be limiting losses as opposed to gaining any ground.

Rallings and Thrasher expect the party to dip below the 3,000-councillor mark – they currently have around 3,100 – and a net loss of around 250 seats is likely. Although it may be expected, as 2008 wasn’t a particularly good year for the Liberal Democrats. this is still a bad result.

Having ousted Ming Campbell in favour of Clegg the party failed to make a significant breakthrough against a depleted Labour Party, making a net gain of just 33 seats. If their losses start to creep over 300 then alarm bells will be ringing for the leadership.

Minor parties

You need look no further than the results of two of Britain’s minor parties tomorrow to see how strong polling does not automatically translate into election wins under the first past the post.

UKIP have high hopes of ultimately deposing the Liberal Democrats as the UK’s third largest party. I’d suggest they set their sights a bit lower and try to overtake the Green Party in fourth place before they get too far ahead of themselves.

Despite generally polling above the Greens for most of the last decade UKIP lag way behind in terms of elected representatives (145-30, approx.). The Greens’ strategy of targeting a small number of councils paid off spectacularly in 2010 when Caroline Lucas gained Brighton Pavilion and became their first MP. They followed that up by becoming the largest party in Brighton at last year’s elections and subsequently formed a minority administration.

Brighton won’t be holding elections this year but the Greens’ ongoing tussle with Labour in Norwich is set to continue with both parties in touching distance of a majority.

As for UKIP, it’s hard to spot their first ‘Brighton’, let alone thinking beyond that. The party barely holds more council seats nationally than the continuation Liberal Party and the continuation SDP combined (hands up if you didn’t know either existed!).

UKIP should improve on their low base but because of their lack of recourse targeting it is unlikely they will make a great deal of gains. Their strong polling numbers have largely come from online pollsters too, so their share of the national vote will be interesting to see.

We are also likely to witness another milestone in the slow death of the BNP tomorrow. The party are defending six of their nine remaining councillors and as splinter nationalist parties are forming almost weekly it’s hard to imagine many of them will be successfully defended. Anyone dancing on their grave with too much exuberance should be wary though – the Far Right hasn’t disappeared, it’s just very disorganised… at the moment.

Finally, it will be worth looking out for Bradford’s results tonight to see whether Respect can follow up George Galloway’s sensational by-election gain five weeks ago. They had success in Tower Hamlets following Galloway’s last Westminster win so I can imagine Labour activists in that particular part of Yorkshire have been trying to learn the lessons of their recent loss very fast.

That’s about all that can reasonably fit into an already quite lengthy blogpost; it’s time to settle down with the endless supplies of junk food and energy drinks for a night of heavy spinning – don’t get too dizzy!

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Richard Darlington is the head of news at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR)

I’ve long been in favour of copying Australia and making voting compulsory. But there’s a great new idea from Guy Lodge and Sarah Birtch that voting should be made compulsory for first-time voters in the first election in which you become eligible to vote. Over time, no one in Britain could say they have never voted.

Like jury service, voting should be one of those things we do as a democratic duty, rather than something we take for granted as one of our own rights. Even if you don’t buy that argument, there’s a very strong case for using compulsion to help redress the balance in the UK’s turnout inequality.

Turnout in this week’s elections is likely to be low - but the growing inequality in turnout is more worrying than falling turnout itself.

According to Ipsos-Mori, at the last general election, 76 per cent of voters from the top social class (AB) voted, whereas just 57 per cent of voters in the bottom social class (DE) did. This social-class gap has tripled since 1992.

The age-gap is even more striking. Just 44 per cent of 18-24 year olds voted in 2010, while 76 per cent of those aged over 65 turned out. Until ‘granny tax’, the grey vote had been sheltered from the manifesto busting “we’re all in this together” austerity. Why have manifesto pledges on tuition fees been broken but on free TV licenses, bus passes and winter fuel payments, they have been kept?

Mandatory participation in elections is more widespread than many realise. In approximately a quarter of the world’s democracies, including Belgium, Australia and much of South America, it is mandatory to attend the polls. Not all of these states actively enforce the legal requirement to turn out on election day, but among those that do, enforcement is usually underpinned by means of small fines.

Evidence (pdf) suggests there would be no overall partisan impact of such a move because parties would alter their appeals to reflect the changed composition of the electorate.

• Vote 2012: An introduction to the various elections on May 3rd 17 Mar 2012

Calls for compulsory voting are commonly met with the objection that it is a citizen’s right to choose not to vote. But first-time voters should be compelled only to turn out and should have a ‘none of the above’ option, much like the ‘re-open nominations’ option common place in student union ballots.

It’s time to take another look at compulsory voting and first-time voters are the best place to start.

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Rocked by George Galloway’s late surge win in the by-election last month, the mood music in Bradford is intriguingly changing re. today’s referendum, which campaigners had put somewhat on the back-burner due to parties focussing on the local elections also taking place today.

One local Labour Party member, however, told Left Foot Forward:

“We’ve stopped making election predictions in Bradford.

“However, if forced, I’d say a ‘yes’ vote is now likely. It could make for one of the most interesting mayoral elections in November.”

Given the precarious nature of politics, anything is possible. The public may indeed reject the old ways of town hall councils led by party leaders elected by their peers and opt for a new, revitalised model promised by ‘yes’ campaigners.

West Yorkshire will also see referendums in Leeds and Wakefield.

• We need to make Mayoral politics more worthy of the name 2 May 2012

• Elected mayors: To vote or not to vote? 26 Apr 2012

• Elected mayors: let the referendum campaigns begin 26 Jan 2012

Leeds Councillor John Illingworth, speaking with Left Foot Forward, sees the merits of a Mayor for West Yorkshire as being more appealing for strategic reasons, stating a worrying drift to the south east, particularly in new technologies.

The very influential and well-funded business community in Leeds is very much in favour of an elected city mayor.

At a debate last month, hosted by Leeds, York, and North Yorkshire Chamber of Commerce, members expressed concerns about cities sticking with the status quo possibly facing a two-tier level of core cities, missing the chance of a ‘seat round the table’ of a much vaunted Cabinet of Mayors, promised by the prime minister.

Some in the business community speak of a city region mayor as being more relevant than individual city mayors, since the establishment of the Local Enterprise Partnership.

Cities minister Greg Clark MP has already spoken of a possibility of introducing a city region mayor at a later stage, alongside rather than instead of mayors for Leeds, Wakefield and Bradford, all working in partnership together.

With the Tory-led government having scrapped Regional Development Agencies like Yorkshire Forward, which even former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Heseltine has said was “a mistake”, these cities have lost an important conduit for millions of pounds of public and private investment from other parts of Europe, money the West Yorkshire economy needs to kick-start the recovery.

Some are hopeful an elected mayor could draw new income streams.

Stuart Bruce, a Leeds Labour Party member, told Left Foot Forward:

“Leeds is the second largest metropolitan authority in the country and must play on the international stage to attract jobs and investment.

“Yet historically it has never got a fair deal from London – just look at the failure to get any investment in Supertram of a decent transport infrastructure. An elected mayor would have the clout and kudos to make this a priority and lobby from a position of strength.

“A mayor would have the biggest personal mandate of voters in the country, a voice that cannot be ignored.

“Despite, or perhaps because of, the no campaign’s negativity, I’m hopeful of a ‘yes’ vote in Leeds. Also, the constant national coverage of the London mayoral election, with big names like Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson, means more people can see the benefits that a mayor has brought to the capital.”

Most city councillors across the land from all parties do not share this view, naturally concerned at what their futures may hold under a new system.

Cllr. Mark Dobson from Leeds city council told Left Foot Forward:

“Currently the council constitution enables the council to remove a poor or failing leader. It has been suggested that the selection of a council leader is undemocratic. This is also fundamentally inaccurate.

“A leader – like the prime minister – is a democratically elected individual who is nominated by other publicly elected representatives.”

Wakefield city council leader Cllr. Peter Box goes one step further, telling Left Foot Forward:

“If the Conservatives love elected mayors so much, why don’t they allow direct elections of the prime minister?”

Box speaks of “Alice in Wonderland” politics, complaining:

“…people are being asked to vote on an elected mayor but the government refuses to tell them what powers there might be.”

One Yorkshireman pours cold water on the notion of referendums in both Leeds and Wakefield, saying people there are very traditional and resistant to change; Box says Wakefield people would not like to lose their civic mayor.

But in large cities like Leeds, bigger concerns are worrying campaigners.

Back to Stuart Bruce, a Labour Party member in Leeds:

“Many of the problems Leeds faces aren’t unique – the need to make the transition from public sector to private sector jobs, a demand for more housing and especially affordable housing.

“It also has an over-reliance on financial and legal sector service jobs, with too many people excluded from those opportunities.

“Two of the biggest strategic issues facing Leeds are the lack of 21st-century public transport system and the economic and health inequalities between the north and the south of the city. Without a new mass transit public transport system Leeds will be disadvantaged against similar European and global cities.”

Indeed, globalisation means UK cities are competing with cities around the world, not just each other. There is a lot to consider in these referendums.

With the counts on Friday afternoon, Left Foot Forward will be posting news as more is known.

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Of the ten English cities with mayoral referendum, Nottingham has attracted controversy at times in terms of their no campaign, which has flown close to the wind at times – with government demands ‘no’ posters were taken down – and negative leaflets claiming a mayor would cost an extra million pounds.

Darren Lewis, barrister and chair of Bristol Labour Party, told Left Foot Forward:

“We can all find examples of bad mayors. Just as we can find examples of bad MPs. That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t have either does it?

“Leicester’s elected mayor Peter Soulsby is impressive as he’s done things many Bristolians would like to see, scrap the chief executive and take the power from the unelected to the elected.”

Nottingham South MP Lilian Greenwood doesn’t see things in quite the same way, however, telling Left Foot Forward:

“This unwanted and unnecessary referendum is a distraction from the things people in Nottingham tell us should be the priorities for our city, including cutting crime, creating jobs and improving opportunities for young people.

“We don’t need the Tory-led government in London telling us what’s best for our city.”

• We need to make Mayoral politics more worthy of the name 2 May 2012

• Elected mayors: To vote or not to vote? 26 Apr 2012

• Elected mayors: let the referendum campaigns begin 26 Jan 2012

Greenwood’s take on the referendum echoes the thoughts of many Labour activists across the UK, which she raised with cities minister Greg Clark last week in the House of Commons; she says:

“The double-dip recession and the Tory-led government’s reckless cuts to Nottingham City’s budget pose huge challenges to our city leaders and residents. Our focus should be on meeting those challenges.

“This referendum is an unnecessary and costly distraction.”

Adds Greenwood:

“The Tory-led government has said they want to strengthen local democracy and accountability but offer only one option.

“They said it was up to the people of Nottingham to decide, but then sought to rig the outcome by offering mayors access to the prime minister and threatening to exclude cities which choose not to elect a mayor.”

Nottingham is already part of the English Core Cities Group since 1996 and many in the city question the need to change.

Greenwood continues:

“Ministers are offering the possibility of new powers when realistically there are none are on offer. Powers like transport should be devolved from Whitehall but in Nottingham’s case our City’s tightly-drawn boundaries would not be the appropriate level.

“If powers were contingent on a wider city boundary then the decision can’t just lie with current city voters.

“Any review of boundaries should take into account the outcome of the Boundary Commission’s recommendations for the city parliamentary constituencies rather than risk more confusion about who speaks for the city.

“I note that Greg Clark has suggested a mayor would speak for the conurbation but if so, the conurbation should be voting on whether we have a major and who it is.”

It’s been largely the Labour group campaigning for a ‘no’ vote, though many local business people and community leaders are supportive.

Speaking to Left Foot Forward, David Skelton, deputy director and head of research Policy Exchange, said proponents of the mayor seem to think along the following lines:

“Civic leadership is all too often anonymous and little known. A poll earlier this year showed 85 per cent of people could not name their local council leader. Having a single, well-known advocate is one of the huge advantages of having an elected mayor.

“Another powerful case is as well as doing something to halt the centralisation of power in London, a directly elected mayor in Nottingham would rely on the votes of around 300,000 citizens, rather than the votes of a few councillors behind closed doors.”

Another supporter is Stephen Barker, former director of communications at the council, who told Left Foot Forward

“I think the person who leads Nottingham should be chosen by everyone, not by a few politicians in a secret meeting.”

An eve of poll survey in the Nottingham Post shows undecided voters could yet swing the final result either way, with 39 per cent in favour of the present council leader system, compared to 32 per cent who say they’d like to see a directly elected mayor in charge.

Professor Steven Fielding, director of the Centre for British Politics at the University of Nottingham, told Left Foot Forward:

“People have a vague idea that there’s a referendum. The important thing is going to be who turns out to vote tomorrow and what their views are. I think it will be a relatively low turnout.”

He added:

“People often come out to vote against the party in power of the country. With the coalition in charge, it could mean the referendum is be decided by the Labour-inclined voter.”

Those following Steven Fielding on Twitter (@PolProfSteve) have been given this warning though:

“Last word on directly elected mayors: it’s like moving deck chairs on the Titanic.”

As Jo Tanner, director of the campaign for directly elected mayors, admitted to Left Foot Forward:

“An elected mayor is no magic wand. He or she won’t be able to solve every issue that a city faces, certainly not in a single term.

“But, by standing above the political maelstrom and having a mandate direct from the people, they can make a start.”

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Voters in Sheffield will be asked to decide on the future of their city governance in a referendum today, Thursday May 3rd. The choice is between keeping the current system where they elect councillors who in turn choose a leader and cabinet members, or to move to a directly-elected mayor to run their city.

Kevin Meagher, chair of the cross-party Mayor4Sheffield campaign, makes a compelling case for change, telling Left Foot Forward:

“We’d have a real champion for Sheffield bringing more influence to bear when dealing with government and investors.

“It should be clear, after the disaster of Sheffield Forgemasters, that we’re not being listened to down in Whitehall. Sheffield is a deeply divided city and we have too many ingrained social and economic problems not to have our case heard by decision-makers.

“We need a mayor – elected by the whole city – to shout for us and make sure that case is heard.”

• We need to make Mayoral politics more worthy of the name 2 May 2012

• Elected mayors: To vote or not to vote? 26 Apr 2012

• Elected mayors: let the referendum campaigns begin 26 Jan 2012

Opponents of the proposed change in Sheffield include Unison, who complain of the referendum being “imposed” on the city with “no public demand”.

With referendums across ten of England’s largest cities on Thursday, Meagher takes a bigger picture approach, worrying about Sheffield being left behind if it opts to cling onto existing structures.

Cities like Sheffield face huge issues, he points out, including a 17-year life expectancy difference between the poorest and wealthiest. With savage public spending cuts to manage and regional public sector pay negotiations looming – let alone scrutinising NHS reforms – Meagher speaks of the Council Leader’s megaphone not being big enough.

He told Left Foot Forward:

“Friday will see the creation of a premier league of cities with powerful elected mayors, using the clout that a direct mandate gives them to fight for their cities’ interests, dealing with ministers in Westminster as equals.

“Cities like Sheffield benefited enormously from 13 years of Labour’s economic growth, revised funding formulas that helped deprived northern boroughs and massive new investments in public services. But those days are over.

“We are in the second year of austerity, with five more to come. There is less money to go around so we need to be able to fight our corner harder than ever.”

There is a strong case for the high visibility of elected mayors leading to accountability, enhancing direct engagement with the electorate and providing a mechanism to address the north-south divide.

Personality is just one aspect of political engagement, but without big names campaigning for a “yes” vote some report the campaign having not really come alive in Sheffield, as yet.

One campaigner told Left Foot Forward:

“Potential candidates are sitting on the fence and waiting to see what happens. I guess this will be closer than, say, the Birmingham campaign, as no big names like Liam Byrne have come out and said they want to be mayor.”

One very big name in Sheffield is David Blunkett, MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough, former home secretary and leader of Sheffield city council during the Thatcher years.

He told Left Foot Forward:

“I think there is now a tendency to move towards executive style government, from the power of the First Minister of Scotland through to the police and crime commissioners to directly elected mayors.

“The Liberal Democrat obsession with changing the nature of parliament, with the Executive outside the legislature, would take a further step forward if ministers were to attend a revised House of Lords but would not be members of it!

“Whilst a coordinating mayor for the city region has real logic, maintaining the commitment to very local elected representatives (which is what elected councillors exemplify) emphasises subsidiarity but, more importantly, participative and locally devolved politics.”

For the last 20 years, Sheffield South East’s MP has been Clive Betts, who spells out his antagonism rather more starkly, telling Left Foot Forward:

“An elected council leader can be held to account by the 84 other Sheffield City councillors, but during their four-year term there is no democratic control over a directly elected mayor. It would really mean an elected dictatorship.”

Mayors will have at least the same powers of a council leader. Extra powers have been promised by the prime minister, maybe over transport, in a similar way London’s mayor has secured extra powers over Transport for London, policing and planning.

This week in Parliament Betts accused cities minister Greg Clark MP of misleading the public over the allure of new powers, pointing out the PM had already assured him back in March that extra powers could be obtained, mayor or no mayor.

There is palpable irritation expressed against switching to a model of elected mayors, which is matched with a real zeal for change in “yes” campaigners. This is true in Sheffield and mirrored in Bristol and Birmingham, tipped to be the most likely cities to vote “yes” this Thursday. Though with paltry polling it is impossible to really know.

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Malcolm Clark presents a simple guide to voting in today’s London Assembly and Mayoral elections

London Assembly – Constituency Member:

This is your yellow coloured ballot paper.

You have one vote for the candidate you prefer. The winner is the candidate with most votes in that constituency. Constituencies are made up of pairs of boroughs (e.g. Lambeth and Southwark) or in a couple of instances three boroughs.

Historically, the constituency Assembly Member seats have been won by either the Conservatives or Labour, so for your vote to have maximum effect – e.g. for defeating a Tory – voting for the Labour candidate is the best approach. 

However, if all Assembly Members were elected in this winner-takes-all way, it would replicate the problems and discontent with the way we elect our MPs; hence…

London Assembly – London-wide Assembly Member:

This is your orange coloured ballot paper.

You have one vote for the party you prefer. A more proportional voting system is used so that the overall Assembly reflects how all of London voted. It works by adding together all votes cast (for the London-wide Assembly Member list) across London. Any party with less than 5% of the total vote is eliminated.

A formula is then used to proportionally allocate the 11 London-wide seats, taking into account any constituency Assembly Members the parties have already won. Here’s another chance to vote with your heart and for that vote to count.

Voting Green, Labour, Lib Dem (or indeed one of the smaller parties or independents if they get more than 5% London-wide) will have a direct bearing on how many seats that party ends up with in the London Assembly.

London Mayor – The ballot paper:

• Pink ballot paper;

• One vote for your first choice candidate – put an X in the first column, next to that person’s name;

• [Optional] One vote for your second choice candidate – put an X in the second column, in line with that person’s name.

London Mayor – Making the most of your vote:

If – like me – Ken Livingstone’s policies make him your first choice candidate, put him as your first choice. However, you may feel there is another candidate who most closely matches your values or what your heart believes – whether that be Siobhan Benita (Independent candidate) or Jenny Jones (Green) or Brian Paddick (Lib Dem). If so, then vote for them first.

However, if you voted for one of these other candidates, then put Ken down as your second choice. Otherwise (unless you vote for Boris Johnson or want him to win) your vote won’t count to the final result.

London Mayor – How it works:

A candidate needs to get more than 50% of first choice votes to win outright. Boris (or Ken) are highly unlikely to achieve this. Thus there will be a second stage. The top two candidates remain – again based on opinion polls highly likely to be Ken and Boris. All the other candidates will be eliminated and their ballots looked at again for second preferences.

Where people have cast their 2nd choice for one of those two remaining candidates, that is added onto their total. The winner is then the one with the most votes.

So if you want to make the most of your vote, your second choice candidate should be one of the ones most likely to end up in the top two – Ken or Boris – if you haven’t already voted for that candidate.

• Vote 2012: London 26 Apr 2012

n.b. The London Elects website – www.londonelects.org.uk – has non-partisan info about all aspects of the elections.

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Ellie Cumbo is a criminal justice and gender equality policy wonk, City Hall enthusiast and editor of Anticipations, the magazine of the Young Fabians

Among other things, Daily Telegraph blogger Dan Hodges said on Monday the number one responsibility of the Mayor is to “unify our capital”, and give a voice to “all of its citizens”. Proponents of directly elected mayors would agree, with Lords Heseltine and Adonis hailing them as the key to a better deal from Whitehall.

Of course elected mayors will have the potential to act as noisy national spokespeople for their cities and regions. But to cast mayors primarily as glorified local lobbyists, advocating on voters’ behalf to someone else who has the final responsibility, is to ignore the vast range of decisions in which the buck stops with them.

In London, there are at least 14.6 billion reasons for political commentators to focus less on what the mayor says and more on what he actually does.

With ten more cities poised to hold referendums this week on whether to adopt a similar model, here are three other reasons those with an interest in healthy local politics should consider.

• Elected mayors: To vote or not to vote? 26 Apr 2012

• Elected mayors offer ‘greater visibility, accountability and coordinative leadership’ 16 Apr 2012

• Support grows for mayors as Londoners hail ‘better city’ from experience 11 Apr 2012

• Elected mayors: let the referendum campaigns begin 26 Jan 2012

• Directly elected mayors with increased powers will reinvigorate local governance 25 Jan 2010

Firstly, the public need much more clarity about mayors’ powers, and how they intersect with those of local authorities and Parliament. In my time working at City Hall I learned that significant numbers of Londoners thought the mayor could change national laws so they didn’t apply in London, order Westminster city council to let them off parking fines, or take on their heartbreaking money and housing problems as casework.

It cannot be good for public confidence in politicians that voters have been encouraged to view the Mayor as their universal representative, instead of the executive arm of one particular level of government.

Secondly, those who scrutinise the Mayor are not getting the support they need. The London Assembly has a tough enough job as it is: Assembly Members question Boris Johnson and his team just a few times per month at Mayor’s Question Time, or via longer-term committee investigations.

Their efforts are not helped when the media takes little to no interest because they’re more interested in what the Mayor thinks about Gary McKinnon, or the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, or umpteen other things over which he has no direct power whatsoever.

Finally, the lack of debate on mayoral business has surely played a part in allowing the candidates’ personalities to all but eclipse their policies. Ken Livingstone may have been selected more than a year and a half before the election, but in the face of the consensus that proper engagement in local politics just isn’t sexy, his ability to engage the traditional media beyond accusations of tax-dodging versus regurgitated chicken feed was always going to be limited.

It has been largely left to bloggers and tweeters to point out Boris’s proposed council tax cut is worth one onion a month, or to report on the demise of the Metropolitan Police Authority and what it means for police accountability. On top of that, he is not an Assembly Member and does not have even their minimal powers of formal policy scrutiny.

This is a hopeless way to generate discussion around imaginative new ideas for a better London.

Whatever the outcomes on Thursday, politicos who value local democracy should take some time to think about how mayoral politics can be made more worthy of the name.

In London, Labour should get a more authoritative, strategic grip on what Mayoral powers should be used for in the long-term; and this expertise and vision must be there to draw on from the second candidates are selected. Parties should also review the support made available to their AMs, to ensure their scrutiny work is visible to the public, and take a view on reforms to the system itself, such as a cabinet of Deputy Mayors with specific responsibilities.

But commentators, bloggers, tweeters and political pub chatterers also have to redouble attempts to turn the media spotlight on the real business of City Hall, and council chambers across the country; devolution of powers is doomed if the public debate doesn’t go with them.

Right now, millions of ordinary voters might be about to fall down the chasm between the two.

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Alex Salmond is to face a grilling from Lord Leveson over his links to Rupert Murdoch, it was announced today, as the first minister faced another torrid session of First Minister’s Questions at Holyrood, rounded on by Labour, Liberal Democrat and Tory MSPs.

The SNP leader – and long-time Murdoch defender – is likely to be called to give evidence on June 13th, a Scottish government spokeswoman told The Scotsman.

The news came as the clamour grew for Salmond to set up a Scottish phone-hacking probe, with Nick Clegg joining in the chorus today – laying in to the first minister’s ”cosy relationship” with Murdoch and his closeness to other right wing billionaires like Donald Trump.

As STV reports, the deputy prime minister said:

“I’m slightly losing count of who Alex Salmond spends his time sucking up to. One moment it’s Rupert Murdoch and then it’s Donald Trump.

“He clearly has a fascination with very wealthy, very powerful men and is happy to trade, basically, with them in order to further his own political ambitions.

“I heard Alex Salmond trying to justify his strategy of ingratiation with Rupert Murdoch on the basis that it was for Scottish jobs. In fact, the only job he had in mind was his own.

“I think it’s time he put the public and the interests of Scotland before his own cosy relationship with Rupert Murdoch.”

• Under fire over hacking? How do you prove you’re fit and proper? By mocking Roy Hodgson 2 May 2012

• The Murdoch stench lingers around Salmond 2 May 2012

• McConnell sues News International as Labour call for inquiry into Salmond’s adviser 30 Apr 2012

• Under-fire Salmond has “lost his sense of smell” over the “stench of Murdoch” 26 Apr 2012

• The 25 questions over the SNP’s Murdoch links 19 Jul 2011

At the Scottish Parliament, meanwhile, Salmond refused to say if his phone had been hacked, as all three opposition leaders turned up the heat over his links to Murdoch.

Scottish Conservative leader Ruth Davidson said:

“This first minister reports to this Parliament – so this is his big opportunity. Dodging the question now only to reveal all when he takes the stand later will look like media manipulation of the very worst kind.

“Was he hacked and didn’t speak out to protect his new best pal – or did Rupert not need to bother tapping his phone, because he was already on speed dial? Parliament is asking, Scotland is watching – first minister were you hacked?”

Joining in, Scottish Liberal Democrat leader Willie Rennie added:

“The first minister is responsible to this Parliament – why won’t he tell us whether his phone has been hacked? Despite all the excuses, we’ve heard the first minister manned the barricades to protect Rupert Murdoch from a Scottish inquiry.”

And Scottish Labour leader Johann Lamont asked:

“Given the further revelations we have seen in the last few days, why does the first minister still believe Rupert Murdoch is a fit person to run an international media company?”

In sum, Salmond responded by saying Leveson was UK-wide anyway, so why bother having an inquiry; that he’d be “speaking specifically about a range of matters under oath” at Leveson so needn’t bother telling mere MSPs if he’d been hacked; and claimed thousands of jobs were at stake if he slighted Murdoch, almost saying ‘so to Hell with ethics and principle’.

No excuse, it appears, is too small for Wee Eck.

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Tony Burke is the Assistant General Secretary of Unite

Unite is intent on there being no hiding place for the Austrian-owned company that behaved in a cavalier and illegal fashion when it dismissed more than 140 workers in Liverpool.

Mayr-Melnhof Packaging (MMP) took full advantage of Britain’s notoriously lax labour laws when it locked out the employees in February in a dispute over redundancies.

They thought ‘that was that’, especially given the anti-union slant of the coalition. But Unite, as the UK’s is the largest union, is not without resources and we have been fighting back on the home turf of Mayr Melnhof Karton AG (MMK), MMP’s parent company, in Vienna.

The recent protest by workers from MMP’s sites across Europe as MMP’s shareholders gathered at Vienna’s five-star Grand Hotel, so worried the aristocratic Mayr-Melnhof family – who own 59 per cent of MMK – that they, apparently, scuttled off to their lawyers to issue threatening letters.

Surely a sign that concerted protest does work, when in a corner take cover behind an expensive lawyer.

Unite has followed this up with a complaint to the 34-nation Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) saying the company has broken the OECD’s guidelines on the behaviour and conduct of multinational enterprises.

What we want is meaningful and genuine negotiations to settle this dispute on Merseyside that has already blighted the reputation of MMP with its shareholders and UK customers, such as cereal maker Kellogg’s, and electrical manufacturer, Philips.

• Osborne’s dogmatic return to Thatcher-era employment law 10 Apr 2012

• Cash for policies anyone? Beecroft, Wonga, millionaire Tory donors and slasher Osborne 30 Mar 2012

• Osborne’s solution to unemployment? Make it easier to unemploy people 7 Mar 2012

• Look Left – Workers prepare to fight slasher Osborne 25 Nov 2011

• Gideon’s grotesque attempt to blame workers’ rights for unemployment 3 Oct 2011

Unite won’t be deflected in its task of exposing injustice to working people and by senior MMK executives aping the blind arrogance of long-gone Imperial grandees.