Letter: Who Can We Expect to Stand as Mayor of Surrey?

Published on: 5 Mar, 2025
Updated on: 5 Mar, 2025

From David Roberts

In response to: Dragon Interview – Fiona Davidson on the ‘Devolution’ Proposals for Surrey

The prospect of direct elections for a Mayor of Surrey opens up a world of bizarre possibilities, not least that a Conservative might win.

While council elections throughout Surrey have turned comprehensively against the Tories in recent years, the result of a four- or five-way contest for a single, county-wide post is unpredictable.

Quite a few Tory re-treads might fancy their chances. Might a footloose Dominic Raab decide to consider a humbler job than “Deputy PM”? Will Lisa Townsend see a chance to escape her pointless role as Police and Crime Commissioner? Has Matt Furniss started to worry yet about losing his double set of councillor’s allowances when GBC and SCC finally expire in 2027?

Worse still, will there be a return of Guildford’s (politically) living dead, in the ghostly form of ex-council leaders Paul Spooner or Stephen Mansbridge? Don’t forget that it was Mr Mansbridge and his erstwhile deputy Monika Juneja who in October 2016 (just a few months after her conviction at the Old Bailey) managed to foist on us an expensive local referendum to introduce a directly elected mayor, a proposal which voters resoundingly rejected.

See: Guildford Rejects An Elected Mayor System of Council Governance

But maybe the man to beat will be Robin Horsley, the maverick right-winger who has been oddly silent since throwing Guildford’s last borough council elections into confusion with his one-man disinformation campaign about the development of North Street.

We are living in an age of populist politics and imperious leaders. Cometh the hour, cometh the man!

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