In fact page 41 of Capital Cardiff (Morgan and Hooper) Makes for depressing reading for those in the last Labour administration detailing its failures from the cock up in the social services department. Then the whole problem of the allowances taken when the council had a shortfall of 2 Million pounds along with redundancies in the council work force. On top of it illegal payments that were made using "Emergency Powers" avoiding approval in full council. It also says quite clearly in the Lyon report that Cllr Goodway "decided to assume both the roll of leader and Lord Mayor himself" Your description is nothing more than a "legal fiction" if any Labour councillor had dissented you would have disciplined them as you where the "whip" (I believe) at the time. It would seem that this makes for an strong argument against Cardiff opting for a directly elected mayor if there is no strong scrutiny (another criticism of the scrutiny powers under the current system that apparently is evident in some authorities that have elected mayors).
If this was not addressed with the introduction of an elected mayor, then I would oppose its introduction (strongly), along with having election nonpartisan (as one finds in most US cities).
There is no reason for local government to be run in the same way as national government, and as you can see that cardiff has suffered from it.
This was written in response to Cllr Ralph Cook's on Cardiff Online's "Debate" on an elected mayor for Cardiff.
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