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Last night's elections look like they will certainly dent the crusade for directly elected mayors, with some fairly dramatic rejections of the idea in some of Britain's biggest cities.

The only directly elected mayor in our patch, of course, is Torbay's Gordon Oliver. Torbay voted in 2005 to create this powerful political post - arguably far more powerful than simply being a Member of Parliament.

As we ponder the pros and cons of whether directly elected mayors represent an advance in democracy for local government, it's worth remembering that only 55% of those who voted were in favour of the idea in Torbay. And those who voted accounted for only 32.1% of the electorate. And last year Gordon got the job with just 25.7% of the vote.