Down here in Torbay we have an elected Mayor, principally because the local Northcliffe rag told its readers that one was the best option. I don’t think that anyone now agrees with the ‘newspaper’ any more. Incidentally, although we are much smaller than Wolverhampton, our Chief Executive is paid more than yours!

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Amazing isn’t it!

This Labour government can hold referenda on all the hottest topics NOT being debated in pubs or clubs: such as, do we want an elected mayor or a leader-and-cabinet to run our local authorities. Unsurprisingly, only 21 people in a borough of 260,000 people appear to hold an opinion one way or the other on this most esoteric of subjects.

And yet it singularly refused to give us a referendum on the most pressing issue of our time: namely, whether we want to surrender to an unelected overseas bureaucracy the right to decide our country’s foreign policy, its immigration policy, its taxation policy; in fact, finally handing over the remaining rights of a sovereign nation to govern itself. This, despite Labour promising in its 2005 election manifesto that it would put to a vote of the British people whether or not we wanted to adopt the EU’s Lisbon Treaty, to which a majority of us have been consistently opposed throughout.

Wake up, folks. This Labour government has treated you like children; deliberately failing to consult you about the big decisions it has taken in your name whilst palming you of with ‘consultation’ about trivia.

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A similar highly restricted consulation recently took place in Walsall. I saw a minor advertisement in the local newspaper and responded, although the link on the council’s website was very well buried. Bluntly it was an affront to democracy as whether you agree with an elected mayor or not the population should be given a fair means to air their views.

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Connor – the time to have had a referendum on Lisbon was BEFORE it was ratified by Gordon Brown, not afterwards. Therefore, blame for this betrayal rests fairly and squarely with Labour (who signed this Treaty into law), not the Tories (who didn’t).

Besides, you obviously think we humble Brits can’t be trusted to express a view on the trifling matter of our own national governance because we are all swayed by “emotion, prejudice, hatred and lies rather than intelligent debate and reason” – which, if I may suggest, has been the classic mindset of the EU elite ever since the original Treaty of Rome in 1957.

I guess that’s probably the reason why Labour never asked us too whether we wanted the country to be flooded by 2.3 million new immigrants since 1997. But there we go – chalk “racist” up on your little list of our national traits as well!

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