SO, the people have spoken on the issue of elected mayors – and, almost everywhere, David Cameron’s plan for shiny new city leaders lies in ruins.

From Newcastle to Nottingham, from Bradford to Birmingham, voters delivered a raspberry to the Prime Minister’s plea to “have a Boris” running their city.

The question now is what are the implications of the 9-1 thrashing in the mayoral referendums, for the region’s towns, as well as the country’s big cities?

And, while I’m at it, the latest miserable failure to devolve power to the North and Midlands should not be allowed to pass without an inquest into what went wrong.

As someone who has reported on this sorry saga for two years, the last bit is easy. One culprit looms large – and not only because of his mighty size.

Step forward Eric Pickles, the Communities Secretary and the Cabinet minister charged with turning Mr Cameron’s vision into a workable plan. Instead, we endured two years of confusion, indecision, flip-flopping and downright obstruction from a man clearly opposed to the policy from the off.

There is simply no space to recount all the ludicrous twists and turns, as Mr Pickles stumbled from absurdity to farce and back again.

At various times, his policy was to ‘rebadge’ council leaders as mayors without referendums, to stagger referendums, to promise extra powers then not to promise extra powers. It meant that, in two years, the Government never explained what enhanced responsibilities the mayors would enjoy and, therefore, what their purpose was.

Expert after expert, said only “city-region” mayors – leaders that could, like the Mayor of London, run transport and economic development – made sense. That would have been hugely controversial, of course. After all, the Newcastle “city-region” is normally taken to stretch as far as Derwentside and Easington.

However, instead of trying to make the argument, ministers dodged and dithered. As a result, the promise to give each city a powerful “Boris Johnson” was empty. Everyone could see that was simply not on the ballot slip.

So much for the inquest, what are the implications?

For Newcastle, they look poor – as ministers lavish love on Liverpool, Bristol and Leicester instead, as a reward for adopting mayors. In this way, they will hope to persuade more cities to switch to a mayor without a referendum, by passing a two-thirds majority vote in the council chamber.

But it’s an ill wind, as they say. The “no” votes mean the guest list for Mr Cameron’s promised Cabinet of Mayors – to meet, twice yearly, around the famous Cabinet table, in No. 10 – is rather thin.

I understand the solution will be to invite the mayor of Middlesbrough and, perhaps, of Hartlepool, to make up the feeble numbers.

Perhaps Ray Mallon (Middlesbrough) and Stuart Drummond (Hartlepool) could yet steal a march on Newcastle, by bending the Prime Minister’s ear – and some benefit will flow from this almighty Pickles?

BRITAIN produced its own Lee Harvey Oswald figure, responsible for the only assassination of a Prime Minister, 200 years ago tomorrow. That’s the new theory about John Bellingham, a merchant described as the “ideal patsy” for the powerful who opposed Spencer Perceval’s crackdown on the slave trade, in 1812.