Short back and

sides for the ermine

It looks as though future mayors of Boston will have to tighten their belts – which considering some incumbents over the years would be a sight worth seeing!
A report today to the borough’s cabinet of curiosities suggests considering cutting the annual spend of around £80,000 by anything between 15% and 50%.
An avalanche of suggestions has been forthcoming from the borough’s Performance Review Committee and also the Way Forward Group.
Former mayors have said that they believe that savings can be made, but that there could still be “a valuable contribution to the history of the office and the borough and also the valuable role of promoting Boston.”
The office dates back 465 years, and back in the day was a post of great significance.
Now it has been diluted to a largely ceremonial office that involves fewer than ten functions arranged by the borough each year plus attendance at other events by invitation.
The Performance Review report says that the greater the savings, the “further reaching” are the implications – but that is not for the likes of riff raff such as us to know about as this is dealt with in another of the borough’s notorious confidential reports.
In pursuit of this, the Performance Review Committee actually went so far as to say that there should be no public consultation on its recommendations. How nice to see them emerging in their true colours after all this time.
This conflicted with the ideas of the Way Forward Group which was in favour of asking the punters what they thought. Another suggestion from the Way Forward Group is to cuts costs charging invited guests to relevant functions.
Frankly this sounds like a non-starter, as the idea of inviting someone to a mayoral bash and then asking them to pay for the “privilege” encourages a polite but definite refusal.
As we said earlier, the role of mayor has diminished by degrees down the centuries – but we think it was irrevocably debased when the Boston Bypass Independents took over the council helm.
In their rush to hijack the borough, they changed the rules that saw the mayor elected by virtue of length of service.
That was a sensible way of doing things, which saw the borough honour those councillors who had given most public service – and whose loyalty to Boston had been recognised by regular re-election.
In their rush to make sure that a BBI mayor was appointed as soon as possible, this civilised procedure was swept aside – although even then the BBI was forced to wait a year or two.
Now a mayor is no longer elected on merit, but through political wrangling and connivance.
If the council changes direction at the May election the old system could perhaps be readopted – and there will hopefully be enough former, long serving members to make it work.
But we also wonder what any public consultation exercise might come up with – as to most people nowadays a mayor is just a jolly-looking figure in a quaint, santa-style red coat, sporting loads of bling and a funny hat. We doubt that they would consider the job worth upwards of £100,000 a year.
The cabinet will consider the recommendations of both meetings and deliver its voting orders to the council meeting on 2nd March.

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