25 February 2005
Hartlepool mayor Stuart Drummond – who is better known by his pseudonym H'Angus the Monkey – is among a clutch of elected mayors standing for re-election.
Hartlepool Borough Council, which has a slender Labour majority, confirmed this week that Drummond is 'fully expected' to be on the ballot paper for the election on May 5 as an independent candidate.
He was first elected in May 2002, when he took more than 60% of the vote with his slogan of 'free bananas for schoolchildren'. At the time, Drummond was Hartlepool Football Club's mascot, H'Angus the monkey. The mascot took its name from the tale that Hartlepool's residents were said to have hanged a monkey during the Napoleonic wars because they thought it was a French spy.
The former call centre worker's election was seen as a huge embarrassment for ministers, who had hoped directly elected mayors would prompt a revival in interest in local government, only to see a monkey mascot elected.
However, since he took on the £55,000-a-year job, the council has been awarded 'excellent' status three years running in the Comprehensive Performance Assessments.
His main challenger could be the Labour candidate, to be selected from a shortlist of four at the weekend.
Also standing for re-election are Linda Arkley, the Conservative directly elected mayor of North Tyneside, and Mike Wolfe in Stoke.
The elections come as the Cabinet is reviving the mayoral idea. Ministers are rumoured to be looking at ways they can 'improve' the number of high-quality council leaders and have returned to mayors as a possible solution. The Cabinet is said to have united on the idea after the failure of regional government to get a foothold in the political landscape.
'The push is coming from the fact that the mayors in place are working pretty well,' said Anna Randle, head of policy at the New Local Government Network think-tank.
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