I’ve a confession to make. I once considered putting myself forward as Mayor. Five minutes later I had come to my senses. For one thing I hate fancy dress, there is the fact that It am a republican and then I would have had to give up my Cabinet post.

When a Cabinet member steps down to wear the chair they give up real influence for temporary status. When their mayoral term ends those who have replaced them are understandably unwilling to step aside. Few leading councillors are willing to wear the chain until they have retired from the front bench, so for the majority party the Mayoralty is something with which they can reward the loyal Councillor Buggins or a carrot to dangle before a member of the awkward squad. This explains why Mayors frequently make useless chairs of Council meetings. It also explains that opposition councillors usually make quite good mayors – they are grateful for a crumb from the majority’s table so are eager to please and are used to being powerless.

At about this time of year mayoral hopefuls begin jockeying for position, seeking the support of their own parties to be put forward for the Deputy Mayoralty in May. Behind the scenes horse-trading ensures that the nominee that emerges is not contested in public. The majority party has the mayoralty most of the time, the others wait their turn. If opposition nominees are unacceptable to the majority party they don’t get the job.
I’ve concluded, however, that the Mayoralty should carry an official health warning. The most obvious danger is that the mayoralty can seriously damage one’s waste line. A former mayor told me that a bad diet of dubious finger food and rubber chicken piled on the pounds in the first few months of his term. Female Mayors have usually handled this better than their male colleagues.

But the real risks of the Mayoralty are mental rather than physical. Being the Mayor presents the incumbent with a set of circumstances very unfamiliar to the local politician – people actually LIKE the Mayor! Being LIKED is such a strange and rare thing in public life – and the high is dangerously addictive.

Problems and budgets take a back seat. People are pleased to see you. The world is an enjoyable place. In some cases this rarely experienced high leads to MADS (Mayorally Acquired Delusional Syndrome) where all sense of their own importance is lost and pomposity runs riot – thankfully such cases are rare.

By far the gravest threat to the health of our first citizens is PMS – Post Mayoral Syndrome. The symptoms– unsociability, grumpiness, disengagement and depression are all part of the ‘cold turkey’ affecting the majority of mayors once the chain is passed to their successor. As with any drug the come down is inevitable. The day after the chair is removed they are back on the back benches and the realisation dawns that the public didn’t like THEM after all, they like THE OFFICE.

In recent years the side effects of the Mayoralty have been recognised. Following the trend set by Tony Jones, mayors have immersed themselves in ever more public shows of fund raising for worthy causes in an effort to give the office purpose as well as status so keeping PMS in check. But it’s proved a struggle in vain – all it has done is make the Mayoralty even more popular. Even the best mayors have been found muttering no, no, no at the ordeal of back-bench re-hab.

The only real defence of a potential mayor is not to take themselves too seriously – maybe that is the point of making them wear fancy dress.