Those who, like Jonathan Freedland (Can Labour take a big city route to national power?, 7 April), are strong in their assertions about the advantages of the mayoral system are weak on the evidence. Despite the original claims of its proponents, neither in mayoral referendums nor in subsequent mayoral elections has turnout differed significantly from the norm for local elections, with even the Ken v Boris contest of 2008 seeing only 45% casting their votes despite huge media coverage.
And in many cities leaders and their councils have shown that they can "lead these big cities with big problems" and are "not all heart and no muscle". Local government has already demonstrated that it is the most efficient part of the public sector, and overseen remarkable improvements despite challenging circumstances – witness Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle and Cardiff, to name but a few. They need a better local government finance system and more power. They don't need a system which concentrates power in a single pair of hands, capable of being challenged only by a two-thirds vote of the council, a flimsy safeguard currently being sorely tested in North Tyneside where the mayor's budget was rejected by such a majority (of Labour and Lib Dem councillors) and no budget has yet been agreed.
And on the political front, it's worth noting that Labour needs to win not only in the big cities but across the country as we did in 1997, 2001, and 2005.
Jeremy Beecham
Labour, House of Lords; former leader, Newcastle city council; former chairman, Local Government Association
• Jonathan Freedland clearly has a keen sense of irony when he writes about the benefits of an elected mayor for Birmingham – the city of Joe Chamberlain, probably the greatest municipal innovator of the Victorian era, who achieved all his reforms under the present structure of local government.
Chamberlain was elected by his fellow council members as mayor in 1873, just three years after first being elected as a councillor. He set in train the formation of a municipal gas undertaking, got the council to take over the water company, redeveloped the city centre, began slum clearance and, via the school board, ensured secular education in the board schools. All this was accomplished during three successive annual terms as mayor under the same system we have today. He had no need of the gimmick of being directly elected.
Elected mayors are a sleight of hand designed to hide the steady erosion of local government powers that has happened over the past decades. It is the lack of powers that inhibits many good candidates from coming forward. And why with an elected mayor should anyone run for election as a mere councillor with no chance of exercising any executive office? In cities housing problems have always been around 70% of a councillor's caseload, but city councils now rarely run the housing service.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds
• John Harris is right to fear the headlong rush to elect powerful city mayors (The delusions and dangers of power freak politics, 10 April). One only has to look at where the "strong leader plus" model (devised in the 2007 Local Government Act) has already been implemented to see the democratic deficit that this style of local governance creates.
Labour-run Oxford city council has been an avid supporter of strong leadership using its narrow majority to reduce the power of the cross-party scrutiny function, introduce one member decision-making "committees", abolish its area committee system, centralise planning, and limit the number of full council meetings.
A council where healthy political debate, community consultation and consensus decision-making was the norm has been transformed within a matter of years to the very "power freak" cabal that Harris writes of.
Cllr David Williams
Leader, Green group, Oxford city council
• I suspect that John Harris is asking the wrong question. I have had direct experience of two controversial initiatives – grant-maintained schools and general practice fundholding. In both cases objectors made similar points to Mr Harris, and in both cases those who did not join in suffered.
It will be easy for government to ignore the desperate state of places like Bradford on the grounds that they had their chance and refused to take it. At least, if a city has a mayor, it has an opportunity to make its voice heard, and with some imagination the office of a mayor could really drive change for the better.
Rod Bulcock
Eldwick, West Yorkshire
• Far from being a voter in the London mayoral election, I nevertheless empathise with the Guardian's leader (London deserves better than this, 9 April), which deplores the general concentration of coverage on the two "main candidates". But wait, haven't you noticed that this is the default position of the media in almost every election in Britain? Broadcasters are usually the worst offenders, relying on the wholly unacceptable instruction to their audiences to "check our website for a list of the other candidates". We all deserve better.
David Harvie
Dumbarton
• As former Labour transport ministers and current shadow transport ministers, we understand the need to deliver a better deal for those using public transport in London. That is why we support plans for a fares cut if Labour wins the London mayoral election this May.
Boris Johnson's annual fares hikes have taken money out of people's pockets at a time when they can least afford it. Over the last four years a single bus fare has gone up by 50% and the average fare has gone up by 25%. These fare hikes have been totally unnecessary. Last year, TfL banked a £727m operating surplus and this year it is projected to run a £338m operating surplus.
Given the state of TfL's finances, Ken Livingstone's fare cut of 7% is affordable. Ken will be able to save the average farepayer £1,000 over four years, while continuing to fund the existing programmes for the London Underground upgrade and Crossrail.
Douglas Alexander MP Former transport minister, John Spellar MP Former transport minister, Sadiq Khan MP Former transport minister, Jim Fitzpatrick MP Former transport minister, Maria Eagle MP Shadow secretary of state for transport, Lilian Greenwood MP Shadow transport minister, John Woodcock MP Shadow transport minister, Andrew Adonis Former secretary of state for transport