I’m hoping that the upcoming municipal election is focused on vision, and not a disconnected set of retail promises that are only tangibly linked to the long-term success of London.

No Board of Control candidates means that our mayoral candidates will have more space during the election to present clear visions for the future.  As the only official elected city-wide – compared to the mayor and four controllers under the old system – the visions of our aspiring mayors will get more attention, and thus heighten the candidates’ responsibility to actually present a vision.  Ideally they’ll focus on the next term of council (to 2014) and well beyond (to at least 2022.)  Once elected, our mayor will have heightened moral authority to marshal other members of council around that vision, and Londoners will also have more reason to hold the mayor accountable for doing so.  A mayor can no longer reasonably argue that their vision and political capital is diffused by the other four city-wide elected officials on Board of Control.

Candidates for council must also turn their minds towards a city-wide vision.  Ward-specific issues will always get play at the doors – the turning signal on this or that traffic light needs to be longer, the grass in this park needs to be cut more frequently, cars on this or that street drive too fast, etcetera – but the reality is that councillors spend the majority of their time thinking and voting on city-wide issues during their term. Thus, voters must know how their ward candidates’ visions for London stack up against the mayoral candidates before heading to the polls; armed with this knowledge, voters may wish to elect a councillor who is closely aligned with the mayoral candidate of choice, or on the flip side hedge their vote by electing a councillor that would mount a spirited opposition to a mayoral candidate they strongly disagree with.

If all candidates talk vision on the campaign trail it will also help Londoners to link issues to the bigger picture once the next term begins – it is in every councillor’s interest for Londoners to believe there’s a direction, rather than the current sentiment that council business is a set of unconnected, meandering issues.  An example, many people’s reaction to debating backyard chicken coops was “You debate chickens while I’m worried that I might lose my job!?  WTF is going on at City Hall?  This is beyond out of touch.”  That reaction would have been tempered if the council had communicated a vision for environmental sustainability, with an objective to build community resilience by strengthening local sources of food - and backyeard chicken coops as a potential tactic to achive the vision and objective.  Same goes for other issues like banning water bottles, limiting the growth of drive-thrus, or any other seemingly small headline grabbing initiative.  A vision allows councillors to root micro-issues back to first principles, and also gives Londoners confidence that there’s a destination the council is driving towards, even if they disagree with the specific issue of the day.  It also ensures councillors with a populist streak, God love em’, root their populism is something other than headline potential.  Sure, this council deserves credit of amending the official plan (a very important initiative that got few headlines) and made a good start on writing a strategic plan – but efforts fell well short of articulating a compelling vision that excites and engages the majority of Londoners.    

We should all hope (or demand, depending on how polite you are) that this election revolves around vision; collectively, we should also do our best to elect a majority of councillors that generally believe in a common direction, and are committed to big picture thinking.  (Total group think isn’t great either, so I also believe a vocal minority of opposition is incredibly important.)  I also hope that within its first six months in office the council coalesces around a strategic plan that lays out a clear vision for the future, along with objectives, goals, and measures - and then council sticks to that plan, and roots decisions in it.  London deserves no less.