The tone for a critically important election was anything but serious—the two candidates for London’s mayor joked about personal waistlines and jabbed at each other over personal finances.  There was little talk about immigrant rights and tensions, a flagging and upcoming security concerns for the Summer Olympics.  The challenger and former mayor, Ken Livingstone (2000-08) took ribbing—and a hit in the polls—for his transportation plan that included bringing old double-deckers off mothballs.  And, his opponent, incumbent Boris Johnson, who looks something like a crossbred of Captain Kangaroo and Donald Trump, jovially rolled to re-election last week. 

More than anything, though, what the elections showed were serious shortcomings in the actual job description of mayor in London.  The Economist ran a thoughtful piece about the current—and hereafter—mayor, and lightly chastised his light-heartedness. 

The upshot is that London’s mayor, in spite of running one of the world’s most critical cities, and sitting in over one of the ten most important economies in the world, has little real power. Not all mayorship are created equal:  Some exhibit about the same strength and restraint as the Hulk, whereas London’s mayor is meek as a mouse, with 90% of his budget funded by a central Parliament controlled bank and really very little power over anything but transportation and housing.

It took out-of-control rioting last summer for Mayor Johnson to leverage any control over the then-police chief. And, more recently, the Olympic Committee has been running roughshod over private property rights in the city, installing ground-to-air missiles on apartment buildings and giving the city an Orwellian overhaul. 

Again, the upshot is:  How can we expect our mayors to take their jobs seriously when they don’t have serious powers?