Election analysis as Ben Houchen in Tees Valley rescues Sunak's day

The Conservatives suffered a chastening set of results, which would wipe out all of their seats in the Tees Valley should the general election follow suit. Even the new mayor of York and North Yorkshire, which covers the Prime Minister’s true blue seat of Richmond, is Labour, a seismic change for the land of William Hague and Leon Brittan.

But the Tees Valley mayor sticks up above the waterline like the mast of a sinking ship.

READ MORE: TORIES CLING ON IN THE TEES VALLEY

So Mr Sunak rushed to Teesside Airport – the airport Mr Houchen made his name by saving – to congratulate him, and even cling to him. It was surreal: Tories cheering a remarkable victory inside the echoey hangar while outside the counts were revealing more and more losses – news of the embarrassing loss in Yorkshire came through just as Mr Sunak appeared.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak meets Ben Houchen at Teesside Airport to congratulate him on retaining his position at Tees Valley Mayor. Picture: CHRIS BOOTH

The Prime Minister hailed the “re-elected mayor of Teesside” but perhaps the most significant comments came from Mr Houchen. There is speculation that without having Mr Houchen’s success, Mr Sunak would be vulnerable to a challenge, but, contrary to the usual order of things, it was the victorious mayor who gave the weakened PM his seal of approval – “I could not have delivered without you, Rishi”.

But the commentators noticed that Mr Houchen did not wear a blue rosette all day, and asked whether he had only won by distancing himself from his own unpopular party.

Mr Houchen’s leaflets barely mentioned the word “Conservative” and his posters were in black and turquoise, with not a true Tory colour in sight.

However, local people are not stupid. They know he is a Conservative, but they also know him as being more, much more, than a Conservative. He is Ben in a way that Boris used to be Boris. Voters differentiated between the Ben who can point to the Treasury, Bank Top station and the airport as his successes, and his troubled party which sunk to new lows in the polls.

Rishi Sunak meets a shy young Tory at Teesside Airport. Picture: Chris Booth

Although only a third of people voted, they seem prepared to even give Mr Houchen the benefit of the doubt over the controversial Teesworks land deal.

In Hartlepool, voters corrected their aberration of four years ago when they became the high watermark of Johnsonism as they gave the Tories a remarkable by-election victory, but on Thursday, with the same pencil that they voted against their local Conservative councillors, they voted for Mr Houchen.

Similarly, in the Cleveland Police area, in the same ballot box that they voted against the incumbent Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner, they placed their vote for Mr Houchen.

The swing against Mr Houchen was immense – 17 per cent – but it was not enough. If a Reform UK candidate had stood and picked off 12 per cent of the vote as they did in Hartlepool, it might have made a difference.

Perhaps if Labour had been less cautious – they were talking about buses and car parking while Mr Houchen was planning a £600m new hospital – and perhaps if they’d hammered the “bad deal Ben” slogan a bit harder, Chris McEwan might have come closer, but overturning Mr Houchen’s 72.8 per cent share of the vote from 2021 was always a huge ask.

Labour Party leader Sir Keir Starmer (centre) and shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, celebrate with David Skaith at Northallerton Town Football Club, North Yorkshire, after he won the York and North Yorkshire mayoral election

Indeed, just south of the Tees in North Yorkshire, Labour’s sober campaign was enough to comfortably win the Yorkshire mayoralty – well, it was certainly sober compared to the Conservative Keane Duncan’s bombshell plan to blow much of his budget buying the fading Grand Hotel in Scarborough.

The Yorkshire mayoralty is new and so doesn’t have a figure like Mr Houchen carrying a personal vote, and so the national trend prevailed. The new mayor, David Skaith, now has to knit his vast city and country, red and blue, patch together.

There were a few anomalies elsewhere in the North East. In South Tyneside, Labour lost 10 seats to Independents and Greens as people expressed dismay at the long-running bin strike and several other council controversies.

And in Newcastle, the first Conservative was elected onto the council since 1992 – a staggering result for Doc Anand, an anti-bollard campaigner with a big local reputation.

Keir Starmer arrives in Northallerton to celebrate North Yorkshire voting for a Labour mayor, David Skaith

But usually the region followed the national trend of voting Labour and rejecting Conservatives. The Tories barely featured in the race to the first North East mayor – an area which covers Durham as well as Tyne and Wear and Northumberland. Instead this was a battle between the two wings of Labour, with Kim McGuinness, referred to as a “Starmer candidate”, taking on the independent Jamie Driscoll, regarded as a “Corbyn candidate”. Ms McGuinness won fairly easily, by 41 per cent to 28 per cent, but Mr Driscoll won a comforting 126,000 votes.

And so Mr Houchen proved an almost solitary success for the Conservatives. More than elated, he looked relieved in the hangar at the airport. His third term offers new challenges: having saved the airport, he must move it into the black; having made enemies, including Boro chairman Steve Gibson, he must become more inclusive, and, if Labour wins the General Election, he must be aware that there will be more intense probing of Teesworks.

Yet by being Ben, he had bolstered Mr Sunak’s position and he had given the local Tees Valley MPs a smidgeon of hope of a lifebelt as they surveyed the flotsam and jetsam of the wrecked Tory ship that voters had driven into the rocks.

READ MORE: STARMER HAILS NORTH YORKSHIRE'S NEW LABOUR MAYOR