It’s the same again for Councillor Melvin Cohen who has been elected Mayor of Barnet for the second time. He will take office in May.

The Golders Green ward representative, who previously held the post in 2003, will be only the second person in the borough’s history to serve twice.

“I will do my best to honour the trust that has been placed in me by my colleagues,” he said. “I don’t think I will do anything differently to what I did 10 years ago.”

Councillor Cohen is “very much involved” in communal life as a trustee of the Edgware Sephardi Congregational Trust and a member of Beth Hamedrash Knesset Yehezkel in Golders Green.

He has yet to select the mayoral charity but recalled: “Last time my charity collected about £250,000.” The current mayor, Brian Schama, is a fellow Jewish Tory.