Jon Collins' struggle to hang onto power has been getting increasingly hysterical of late. Collins, the current Leader of Nottingham City Council, is threatened by the thought of losing his power to a directly elected Mayor and is throwing all kinds of dodgy arguments around in the hope of scaring people into voting against switching to mayoral control. A leaflet found in the street outside a mosque today suggests that he has now resorted to suggesting that voting for a mayor is racist!

The leaflet reads:

RACISTS

[Logos of the English Defence Leauge and the BNP]

WANT A £1M EXTRA MAYOR!

The Racist BNP & EDL want a £1M Extra Mayor. That's the wonly way they can win in Nottingham.....

STOP THEM

by voting First Option...

VOTE TOP BOX

against £1M Extra Mayor

The leaflet is promoted and on behalf of Nottingham Labour .

There is so much wrong with this it's hard to know where to start. The idea that the BNP would ever win the mayoral election is ridiculous. They polled at around 3% of the vote in the ward where they stood in Nottingham last year. The EDL aren't a political party so it doesn't really matter what they think about elected mayors although I haven't seen them express an opinion either way (unlike Nottingham BNP who have expressed support for the elected mayor). Even if these fascist no-hopers did have electoral support in Nottingham, the idea that voting against democratic elections for the leader of the council would stop them is a joke.

But this leaflet isn't meant to be thought about. It's a scare leaflet that is meant to frighten naive and well-meaning people into voting against a directly elected mayor, under threat of being accused of supporting racists if they don't. The fact that it was found in the street outside a mosque in Hyson Green speaks volumes about who the Labour Party is targeting with it's baseless threats.

It seems that, having been comprehensively owned by websites like NCCLOLs for his flimsy arguments why the electorate should vote against the mayoral system, Jon Collins has resorted to emotional blackmail of the electorate instead.

It's further evidence that Collins will stoop to any depths in order to cling to power and further evidence of how unsuitable it is that one man should have such power over Nottingham. Forget voting for or against a mayor - isn't it time we started taking down the corrupt power system that rules the city and getting rid of idiots like Collins?