Is anybody going to; (1) complain to the Electoral Commision or who-ever has the power to void the result, (2) call for an investigation into why so many council leaflets were not delivered?

“Bristol has made a decision and voted for an elected mayor. We respect that decision.” I certainly don’t – 53% of 24% when large parts of the city never even got the council’s leaflet. If this happened in a third-world country, there would be widespread condemnation of the lack of democracy.

One other thought came to me on the way to the polling booth; under the current set up the voice of dissent has an equal vote with those proposing. I believe this will be lost under the directly elected mayoral system.

I voted also no for a number of other reasons I’ve articulated elsewhere, namely:

I do not like the additional costs involved, the lack of a recall and more importantly the lack of consistent consultation across the city in advance of the referendum. There is an established legal principle that those in authority must consult with those directly affected before making a decision – I’m not convinced this has happened in advance of the referendum and I’m worried consultation by a directly elected mayor may also prove to be poor.

I suspect if previous Lord Mayors were sticks of seaside rock and we snapped them in two we’d find the word “Bristol” running through them. My big worry is if we snapped a directly elected mayor in half we’d find no mention of Bristol and just the words; “Me! Me! Me!”

Personally I favour vouchers and free schools but that would put power in the hands of me, a parent, wouldn’t it?

But the core cities are Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, Sheffield, Newcastle, Nottingham and Birmingham – and of course Bristol.

All of whom are included in the charts. And all of whom are not under-performed by Bristol on the three measures highlighted.

You appear to be criticising the No campaign for the quality of our evidence which we have at least attempted to provide when responding to claims by the Yes campaign that Bristol is under-performing and will “stagnate” if we don’t vote for a mayor, claims for which they provide no evidence at all.

There are a considerable number of other examples of how well Bristol is performing, for example it is the only one of the core cities whose GVA is considerably above the national average, it has the lowest per capita carbon emissions of any of the core cities, it has the lowest percentage of the workforce with no qualifications, it has one of the best records for successful new business creation, and so on. We chose the three measures above because deprivation and unemployment have a direct impact on the well-being of those residents impacted.

It is, of course, entirely up to you how you choose to vote on Thursday. But please compare how we have tried to provide factual evidence with the utter lack of factual evidence provided elsewhere to support the claim that Bristol is under-performing. Our attempts may not be perfect but we have at least tried.

Bristol is not perfect,by any means, everybody criticises their local council, and Bristol City Council do merit a lot of that criticism. However the Yes campaign should not try to scare people into voting for their Mayor by implying that the city is under-performing and will stagnate if we don’t follow their advice. Especially if they are not prepared to provide any real evidence to demonstrate this is the case.

To a Bristol resident the charts are clearly meant to show Bristol’s wonderful performance. And, as such, they’re misleading.

“Doncaster does not out-perform Sheffield, Middlesborough does not out-perform Newcastle.”

Comparing Middlesborough and Newcastle is a very rough comparison, and misleading again, as is Doncaster and Sheffield. Both Newcastle and Sheffield have well established universities, for example, that means they attract and retain a better educated population.

“For Bristol, there is no real comparison – Cardiff?, Plymouth?, Reading?”

A less misleading comparison with Bristol could be with the so-called core cities – http://www.corecities.com

There are comparisons to be made but at best these graphs show us nothing useful and at worst they’re misleading.

I’m broadly anti mayor but ‘evidence’ like this makes me wonder – if this is the best we can find to demonstrate the success of Bristol then maybe we do need a mayor.