“TRY TO ABSORB THIS INTO YOU BRAINS THOSE WHO KEEP ON CRIBBING ABOUT THOSE WHO DID NOT VOTE. WATCH MY MOUTH: THEY DID NOT VOTE BECAUSE THERE WAS NO ONE/OR NO POLICIES WORTH VOTING FOR. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? IF YOU DO TRY TO GRUNT YOUR ACKNOWLEDGMENT IF ALL YOU CAN UTTER IS FOUL BITTERNESS”

“Yep Mark you still have a job to do, TURN OFF THE LIGHT AND SHUT THE DOOR ON YOUR WAY OUT ( please).

Cant fix this election now can we?”

“You still don'f get it do you Mark ? Whatever job you think you've still got to do, the people of Stoke On Trent have confirmed via the ballot box that they don't want YOU to do it !!.

They don't want you closing their schools, they don't want you closing their leisure facilities, they don't want you spending their money on your South of France jollys.

Please try listening to the people you are supposed to be representing, even if its just for the last 6 months of your tenure - the only job they want you to do is to clear your desk and go back to flogging blinds.”

“alby walker for mayor”

“During the last 3 years of Mark Meredith holding the office of elected Mayor, he has in an undemocratic manner snubbed many thousands of the Stoke-on-Trent electorate in making public his own personal political views. His biased outspokenness could no longer be tolerated; it¿s those views that have caused some of the damage to the City¿s Labour Party, very evident by the subsequent reduction in electoral votes.

Just one example:
Despite several thousand individuals within our City having placed there cross upon the Voting Ballot Paper next to that of a BNP Councillor and to that effect we now have a total of 9 elected BNP Councillors. The elected Lord Mayor has on several occasions made it perfectly clear that he refuses to speak or deal with any Council member of the British National Party and in doing so, totally ignoring the views and wishes of those thousands of voters.

At a cost of half a million pounds per year, our elected Mayor Mark Meredith, decided to surround himself with his so-called ¿Cabinet style of Alliance¿ made up from as follows:
6 = Labour. (including himself).
3 = Conservative and Independent Alliance Group.
2 = Liberal Democrats Group.

The City of Stoke-on-Trent has a total of 60 serving Councillors from 8 different parties / groups, of whom only 17 are Labour, so he immediately decided to take on board a quantity of one third of these Labour Councillors!!!
City Independents total15 Councillors, Mark Meredith¿s Alliance a total of none.
British National Party total 9 Councillors, Mark Meredith¿s Alliance, again none.

It¿s not rocket science; no one could ever have truly called Mr Meredith¿s Alliance democratic.
The Alliance was not a true representation of the elected Councillors and elected political parties in Stoke-on-Trent, it completely failed to represent the electorate of Stoke-on-Trent and now that valuable position of Elected Mayor is no more. It¿s not hard to see why the electorate decided, enough is enough.

It¿s time to be realistic and as a matter of urgency, democracy must be allowed to return to the City of Stoke-on-Trent, and now thanks to this referendum, democracy will and not a moment too soon, reappear to our ailing City.”

“Even now when the people of stoke have had their say and ousted the elected mayor, the powers that be are still moaning that none of us understood the election form and that we were confused of what was being asked of us (mike barnes sentinel fri 24/10). Well mike i believe that the people have voted for what they want and soon you and your cronies will be out on your ears.All that your elected mayor has done for this city is bring it to its knees, downtown Baghdad has seen more regeneration than stoke all that surrounds the city is unemployment and derelict or ruined properties. but i don t hold out much hope for the new council leader as they will no doubt be the same, telling us what we should be thinking or saying as i guess were all to stupid to do this for ourselves.”

“I think the outcome was good as the leader system is the better of the two, but it is by no means perfect. I hope Mark Meredith will take a useful role in the transition period and that leading from the front will mean helping to avoid the squabbling that he fears but at the same time freeing up the councillors to have a larger say in what will be their council and if they get it right, ours too. What I hope they all do now is to work out how best to make it work in a cooperative way so that all councillors will get an appropriate input into the decision making. If that is arranged well then who the leader is becomes a bit less important, although it will still need a skilled individual to pull the diverse views together. (I'm with Fed up, Burslem on tardis Pete for leader.)”

“Mark - Gtr Manchester, your comments are spot on & i totally agree with everything you say.”

“he's done nothing for the city,he should go now not in may.”

“I am saddened that so few bothered to vote. when will people realise that democracy works best when it is what the majority vote. so many didn't bother that we will never know what the majority of s-o-t want.”