Fionnán Sheahan: Lack of a powerful mayor is costing Dublin as tent city saga shows

As the number of tents on the capital’s streets grows, and order seems to be dissolving, nobody appears to be in charge. Photo: Getty

Fionnán Sheahan

When the tide goes out in politics, everything goes with it. Amid the fallout from the brutal hammering of the Tory party, there was some degree of sympathy for the West Midlands mayor Andy Street, whose record in office serves as a salutary tale over this side of the Irish Sea.

The former boss of the John Lewis department stores – they of the sweetly sentimental Christmas TV ads – was hoping to secure a third term as mayor of the area covering Birmingham, Coventry, Wolverhampton, and other boroughs across that region of England. But Street lost out by a margin of just 1,508 votes to Labour’s Richard Parker.