Next week Bill Randall will become the first Green mayor of Brighton and Hove, following a tradition dating from the middle of the 19th century.

But his role will be mainly ceremonial and will last for just a year until someone else is selected.

Compare and contrast that with last week’s contest in London when Boris Johnson was re-elected as mayor, narrowly defeating his predecessor, Ken Livingstone.

Johnson does not have the widespread powers available to mayors in other countries such as France but he can still make a big difference to the city.

Good examples are his decisions to get rid of bendy buses and to introduce bikes available for hire to all. Livingstone, during his tenure, improved traffic flow greatly by introducing the congestion charge.

Johnson has become such a well known figure in the city that although the bikes are sponsored by Barclays they are universally known as Boris bikes.

Londoners showed their appreciation of Johnson by voting him in against the national trend with a night of Labour gains in local government.

I would have thought the success of having a directly elected mayor in London would have encouraged other cities to follow the example of the capital.

But only Bristol decided last week to introduce a mayor with powers with all the others voting decisively against the idea.

Brighton and Hove was one of the first places to vote on having a directly elected mayor and also came out against it.

The trouble with that debate was that it centred on whether Lord Bassam would have been a good mayor rather than the issue of whether the post itself was a good idea.

Since then, Brighton and Hove has been run on the old committee system, followed by a period of cabinet government. It is now reverting to committees again.

The trouble with committees is that they are slow, cumbersome, inefficient, costly and dull. If no one party has overall power, which seems to be an almost permanent state of affairs, they can degenerate further into scabrous stalemates.

A directly elected mayor is able to make many decisions swiftly. This can be vital when major schemes are planned for a city.

The mayor can bring in vitally needed industry or leisure by being quicker than rival cities or can reject schemes at the start, saving everyone a lot of wasted time and money.

It is no coincidence that since Brighton and Hove lost its political direction, there has been a steep decline in the number of projects vital to the city’s future.

Although their ranks have been reduced, there are far too many councillors and they are paid too much money.

Committees often work on the basis that the more times an item are debated the better the final decision will be. There is far more truth in the old dictum that a camel is a horse designed by a committee.

I remember once meeting a councillor from Cincinnati in America who was paying a visit to Brighton. He asked how many people were on the council and was shocked to learn there was 76 plus another 30 in neighbouring Hove.

At that time his home city had the mayor and just four colleagues running a bigger authority than Brighton.

In France, mayors are figures of power and influence, often symbols of their localities. When a much loved Mayor of Dieppe died, there was a prolonged period of mourning and the whole town closed for his funeral.

He happened to be a Communist and the majority of citizens were not but they respected the way in which he ran the place for them.

In Bordeaux, Jacques Chaban-Delmas was mayor for 48 years, serving eight terms. He was also at one time Prime Minister but always said the city job was far more important to him.

Most elected mayors are political in Britain but some of the most successful have not been so.

Bedford elected Frank Branston, a local journalist and newspaper proprietor who generally did a good job.

There was widespread derision in Hartlepool when the town chose a man posing as a monkey, the football club’s mascot, but Stuart Drummond proved to be a popular choice.

Most people in Brighton and Hove will wish Bill Randall well as Mayor. It’s a fitting reward for his service as a leading councillor and he will represent the city properly.

But I do wish, for the sake of the resort, he had real power instead of only privilege.