The Labour Party's Interest in Regional Devolution

The Labour Party's interest in regional devolution is driven by their anxieties over the fraying Union with Scotland. Do you think directly elected mayors is going to address this? Is that going to galvanise local politics because these will be real elections for positions that people can understand, exercise real power? I think there's a kind of wishful thought about what happens in North America where city mayors do have real power,. That's a seriously powerful role. But then it is the mayor of Chicago, it's the mayor of a real city and it's a long standing institutional arrangement. The idea is say to create a mayor of Greater Manchester which will draw in all sorts of smaller towns around Manchester