The West Midlands contest has always been different to that in other areas, largely because Street has won twice without winning the city at the core of the city-region. His profile in Birmingham is low compared to that of other metro mayors in their core cities. Some people refer to Street uas the Mayor of Solihull. I think that the best thing he has going for his in May is Muslim disillusionment with Labour. The South Asian Muslim community has always had high turnout, even in local elections, and have been a significant part of Labour’s electoral coalition. If they don’t turnout, or don’t vote Labour, it makes the party’s task that much more difficult.
The Tories have certainly been flooding social media with ads highlighting (and over-simplifying) the complicated difficulties faced by BCC, but if the engagement with those ads is anything to go by, they aren’t gaining much traction. The anti-Tory comments and derisive emojis outnumber supportive ones, and the pro-Tory comments come from, presumably, activists, as a few names comment repeated or engage in arguments with opponents.
Given the campaigns so far (I live in Birmingham ) have been barely visible I suspect turnout here will be about 27% and a lot of those will be people who vote by post.
What does a West Midlands Mayor actually do, anyway? Does it make any difference? I'm not just being facetious. I live in Coventry and I never hear anyone here talk about Street or about the West Midlands as a political unit. Nothing has come through my door from the mayoral candidates, though I have had the usual leaflet from the Labour city councillors for my ward. Coventry is much closer to Warwickshire geographically and culturally ('Coventry & Warwickshire' is a commonly heard pairing, used by the BBC for example) than to Birmingham, let alone Wolverhampton and the Black Country. The West Midlands is a classic example of a political unit that makes sense to planners but evokes little popular loyalty. It's also the name of a much larger planning region, which doesn't help. There is not much in the way of a West Midlands-wide media to articulate a sense of a political community. News sites are mostly city-specific; the BBC, as mentioned above, separates 'Birmingham and the Black Country' from 'Coventry and Warwickshire'. I'm not surprised the pollsters are showing no interest.
I’ve now had Richard’s newspaper through the letterbox; has anybody else noticed that the corner of the Union Jack up in the top right corner is depicted as upside down, like its signalling a distress call?
- the BCC bankruptcy is a long and complex story, with various parties at fault (previous Tory-led administration, one of the big unions, central government reductions in funding), but the council was Labour led when things went bang. There is widespread anger in the city about the bankruptcy, especially so soon after the Commonwealth Games. This is bound to have an impact on the mayoral vote.
- the recent joint Labour council leader’s letter criticising Street looks like predictable politicking of the kind that is deeply unappealing to a public that wants politicians of all stripes to work together across the broader West Midlands area for positive change.
- The Labour candidate (a former PWC partner) has no strong local political profile or national name recognition. Despite being chosen as candidate a year ago, he hasn’t been able to raise his profile, at least as far as I have seen.
As for Andy Street, he can still characterise his relationship with the Tory party at a national level as reasonably loose or independent. After eight years in office there’s no hint of him tiring of the role, or any particular political baggage he’s collected along the way.
Hello-enjoyed this and agree. Two small naive questions as a non psephologist
1) The Tees Valley 2021 election only had Conservative and Labour candidates so was almost like a 2nd preferences vote. Is there a way to calculate roughly what would have been the impact of 3rd parties- presumably not but perhaps it exaggerates Houchen effect slightly,
2) in 2021 in both West Midlands and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, there were elections for PCC on the same day, same geography, with no incumbents. The results were different in both- Street doing much better (Labour won the PCC vote easily) and James Palmer the C&P mayor lost marginally when the Conservative PCC won marginally. Is it reasonable to consider these differences attributable to the mayoral election? I would suggest the personal brand of the PCC candidates was pretty limited. Its happening again this year in West Mids (although with an incumbent who has made perhaps more kf a name for himself by successfully defeating government attempts to merge the two roles). Would that allow comparison this year?
Where has this reputation for "getting things done" come from? Within Birmingham it is really hard to point to anything Street has got done. Except going on the telly. He's good at that, but the last 8 years are very short on actual results
The West Midlands contest has always been different to that in other areas, largely because Street has won twice without winning the city at the core of the city-region. His profile in Birmingham is low compared to that of other metro mayors in their core cities. Some people refer to Street uas the Mayor of Solihull. I think that the best thing he has going for his in May is Muslim disillusionment with Labour. The South Asian Muslim community has always had high turnout, even in local elections, and have been a significant part of Labour’s electoral coalition. If they don’t turnout, or don’t vote Labour, it makes the party’s task that much more difficult.
The Tories have certainly been flooding social media with ads highlighting (and over-simplifying) the complicated difficulties faced by BCC, but if the engagement with those ads is anything to go by, they aren’t gaining much traction. The anti-Tory comments and derisive emojis outnumber supportive ones, and the pro-Tory comments come from, presumably, activists, as a few names comment repeated or engage in arguments with opponents.
Given the campaigns so far (I live in Birmingham ) have been barely visible I suspect turnout here will be about 27% and a lot of those will be people who vote by post.
What does a West Midlands Mayor actually do, anyway? Does it make any difference? I'm not just being facetious. I live in Coventry and I never hear anyone here talk about Street or about the West Midlands as a political unit. Nothing has come through my door from the mayoral candidates, though I have had the usual leaflet from the Labour city councillors for my ward. Coventry is much closer to Warwickshire geographically and culturally ('Coventry & Warwickshire' is a commonly heard pairing, used by the BBC for example) than to Birmingham, let alone Wolverhampton and the Black Country. The West Midlands is a classic example of a political unit that makes sense to planners but evokes little popular loyalty. It's also the name of a much larger planning region, which doesn't help. There is not much in the way of a West Midlands-wide media to articulate a sense of a political community. News sites are mostly city-specific; the BBC, as mentioned above, separates 'Birmingham and the Black Country' from 'Coventry and Warwickshire'. I'm not surprised the pollsters are showing no interest.
I’ve now had Richard’s newspaper through the letterbox; has anybody else noticed that the corner of the Union Jack up in the top right corner is depicted as upside down, like its signalling a distress call?
Some factors probably count against Labour:
- the BCC bankruptcy is a long and complex story, with various parties at fault (previous Tory-led administration, one of the big unions, central government reductions in funding), but the council was Labour led when things went bang. There is widespread anger in the city about the bankruptcy, especially so soon after the Commonwealth Games. This is bound to have an impact on the mayoral vote.
- the recent joint Labour council leader’s letter criticising Street looks like predictable politicking of the kind that is deeply unappealing to a public that wants politicians of all stripes to work together across the broader West Midlands area for positive change.
- The Labour candidate (a former PWC partner) has no strong local political profile or national name recognition. Despite being chosen as candidate a year ago, he hasn’t been able to raise his profile, at least as far as I have seen.
As for Andy Street, he can still characterise his relationship with the Tory party at a national level as reasonably loose or independent. After eight years in office there’s no hint of him tiring of the role, or any particular political baggage he’s collected along the way.
I wouldn’t be surprised if Street is re-elected.
Hello-enjoyed this and agree. Two small naive questions as a non psephologist
1) The Tees Valley 2021 election only had Conservative and Labour candidates so was almost like a 2nd preferences vote. Is there a way to calculate roughly what would have been the impact of 3rd parties- presumably not but perhaps it exaggerates Houchen effect slightly,
2) in 2021 in both West Midlands and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, there were elections for PCC on the same day, same geography, with no incumbents. The results were different in both- Street doing much better (Labour won the PCC vote easily) and James Palmer the C&P mayor lost marginally when the Conservative PCC won marginally. Is it reasonable to consider these differences attributable to the mayoral election? I would suggest the personal brand of the PCC candidates was pretty limited. Its happening again this year in West Mids (although with an incumbent who has made perhaps more kf a name for himself by successfully defeating government attempts to merge the two roles). Would that allow comparison this year?
Where has this reputation for "getting things done" come from? Within Birmingham it is really hard to point to anything Street has got done. Except going on the telly. He's good at that, but the last 8 years are very short on actual results
Good piece, small quibble: I think "Street has out-polled his party twice" is wrong judging by the graph it appears just after?