'You have got to genuinely care for your place' - Andy Street on what it takes to be a mayor, the pandemic and levelling up

The West Midlands mayor’s passion for his home region is clear, and he told The Yorkshire Post: “I think that’s been the defining feature of making a success of these jobs.”

Speaking to any candidate who may want to take on the task of representing North Yorkshire in the future - or any other part of the country for that matter - he suggested: It’s got to be deep in your heart. You’ve got to know how a place ticks, how it’s going to be successful in the future, and you’ve got to be prepared to champion it.”

“The electorate sniff out if that is genuine or not and you really are committed to a place,” he added.

The former John Lewis boss has represented the West Midlands Combined Authority - including the cities of Birmingham and Coventry - since 2017, the first person to hold the position.

His win first time around was somewhat surprising: a Conservative figure being elected to a top job in an area usually dominated by Labour. Similar mayoralties across England are held by opposition figures: Andy Burnham in Greater Manchester, Tracy Brabin and Dan Jarvis in West and South Yorkshire respectively.

“I was quietly confident that we could do it,” Street said.

In the intervening years, traditionally Labour areas across England have voted Conservative in their droves, and the former businessman attributes his success to an “inclusive” and “tolerant” platform, and says he “reckons it’s good our politics has got a broader base of people coming into those political jobs.”

He went on: “I guess the way we did it was putting a very moderate, inclusive, tolerant brand of Conservatism forward, which befitted an urban young and of course very very diverse place, the most diverse place in Britain.

“What’s happened over the intervening four years before then winning a bigger majority, I hope people have made a judgement of how I’ve gone about this job.

“Has it lived up to those standards of inclusivity and tolerance and actually making sure that all areas of the region benefited from having a mayor?”. His re-election earlier this year with a bigger majority than before would suggest the answer has been ‘yes’.

Despite representing the Governing party, Street is upfront in his opinion on whether HS2 will come from his patch northwards to Leeds - will only be “half surprised” if it is delayed - and is honest in his view that the levelling up agenda, of crucial importance to regions and authorities across the country, has been punched backwards by the coronavirus crisis.

“I like to say actually we did levelling up in the West Midlands before it even became a buzzword,” he said, but added: “It’s had a horrible knock back here in the last 18 months.”

“The levelling up ambition has been set back massively by the pandemic, there’s no question about that. The West Midlands is the worst affected region economically.

“It’s also true that the government has now made real clear commitments, in principle, but we need to see more detail on that coming through.

“But there’s no question that the challenge, greater after the pandemic before the pandemic.

“In simple language we can see we were closing that gap before it has broadened during the pandemic.”

Many political commentators were not surprised by the so-called fall of the Red Wall at the 2019 General Election, when swathes of seats across the English regions in traditionally industrialised and Labour voting areas turned blue, some for the first time in their history. Could Street’s success two years before have been seen as the shift change that was to come?

He thinks it was part of a slower move of the population on the political spectrum, which had actually begun around a decade beforehand.

He explained: “The Midlands version of the Red Wall was breached here by Boris Johnson and his candidates in 2019, but it wasn’t out of the blue.

“It has actually been a steady drift that way since 2005 in the West Midlands, and my own win in 2017 which you asked about was all part of that same trend.”

“It came about I think because voters just said they want to see delivering on the ground, and there was a feeling that the Conservative team were able to do that,” he added.

However, Street’s success comes with a warning to those in Westminster, that the electorate have to be shown that the trust that brought this power has been well placed.

“What this is about, is an electorate that has been prepared to think differently,” he said, “and that’s the change in power, that you’ve actually seen going on”.

“I say to my party and I’m happy to use your interview to say exactly the same. We have got to respond to that trust that has been put in us to demonstrate that we can deliver for some of these communities who feel - and the data would support it - that the outcomes for them were not as good as other parts of the country.

“So we’ve now got a chance to demonstrate the Conservative leadership can respond to the trust they put in us.”