HOW MANY POLITICIANS ARE ENOUGH

On Nat Rad's panel yesterday Chris Trotter was concerned about how many local politicians are enough for a population of 1,300,000. He made comparisons with UK and some European cities and some of those of equivalent size. They ranged from memory from 1 to a couple of thousand to 1 to seven thousand plus. Paris for example was 1 - 7500

He took one Government's council number of 20 members and came to one politician to 65,000 which is clearly too high.

But if you take the two tier system of council and 22 wards I am proposing the total number of politicians excluding the mayor is 176 which gives a ratio of one politician to 7386 citizens which is less than Trotter's gives for Paris and about half that of Glasgow which is one to 16,400.