Super Thursday 2021, part 5: Mayors and Police & Crime Commissioners

The Mayoral contests outside London produced more interesting results than expected, even where the overall outcome was not in doubt at any time.

The most spectacular result was Ben Houchen, Conservative Metro Mayor for Teesside, achieving 72.8% against his sole opponent, Labour candidate Jessie Joe Jacobs (who polled 27.2% and failed to top the poll in a single Teesside authority); even in Middlesbrough, one of the poorest towns in Britain, he polled 68.6%, a testament to his high personal popularity as Teesside mayor, as did the dramatic turnout increase from 21,2% to 34%; demographic changes to the Conservatives' benefit have not yet touched Middlesbrough to the extent they have touched Hartlepool and Redcar. Promises to create freeport status for Hartlepool undoubtedly enthused aspirational working-class voters across Teesside to turn out for Mr Houchen. Similar changes happening in the four Black Country boroughs-Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall, and Wolverhampton-proved very helpful to Andy Street's re-election as West Midlands Metro Mayor, although in fact it was wealthy suburban Solihull gave Mr Street his best result in that election; in that borough he had a majority of 52.2% over Labour's Liam Byrne, currently MP for Birmingham Hodge Hill. In spite of the high competition Solihull councillor Steve Caudwell saved his deposit for the Greens with 5.9%, and in addition to Solihull he also achieved excellent results in Coventry, even though the latter city has never elected a single Green Party councillor; there are currently 15 Green councillors in Solihull. As with London, the rising need to tackle pollution and transport problems boosted the Green vote significantly. Conversely, the Liberal Democrats' candidate Jenny Wilkinson lost her deposit despite her local renown and did not poll 5% or more in any borough in the West Midlands Metro Mayor, another sign that liberal-minded voters are increasingly turning to the Green Party. By contrast, Andy Burnham and Steve Rotherham easily won the Metro Mayor elections in Greater Manchester and Liverpool respectively, with Mr Burnham topping the poll in every single ward of Greater Manchester, even those located in the constituencies of Cheadle, Hazel Grove, and Altrincham & Sale West. The North West's harsh experience of lockdown, as well as a plan for the Conservatives to run Liverpool via commissioners following the events after the arrest of Liverpool Mayor Joe Anderson, significantly tarnished the Conservatives there. The inaugural election for West Yorkshire Mayor, meanwhile, was marked by a particularly strong desire for devolution, as represented by the Yorkshire Party's Bob Buxton coming third with 9.7%, ahead of the Greens' Andrew Cooper who polled 9.2%, even though across West Yorkshire there are 10 Green councillors and no Yorkshire Party councillors. This undoubtedly cut into the Conservative vote, as the Yorkshire Party have been achieving their better results in towns and villages in Yorkshire that are trending away from Labour in the long-term; the Conservatives could not consolidate on their new-found strength in the borough of Wakefield, nor in the suburbs of Leeds and Bradford which were not part of those cities until 1974. The result does mean that there will be a by-election in the Batley & Spen constituency of Tracy Brabin (the first Mayor of West Yorkshire) that has just been vacated, and like Hartlepool that would have been gained by the Conservatives in 2019 had the Conservative vote not been substantially split (by the Heavy Woollen District Independents in Batley & Spen's case); it is almost as vulnerable to a Conservative gain as Hartlepool is.

South of the Wash, however, the Conservatives managed to lose both the Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Mayoral election, previously regarded as safe due to long standing Conservative support in Huntingdonshire and Fenland in particular, and the West of England Mayoral election, where the Green surge in Bristol proved decisive. The incumbent in Cambridgeshire & Peterborough, James Palmer, had run into difficulties dealing with the administration of CAPCA and other projects in Cambridgeshire, although demographic change in South Cambridgeshire due to an influx of science professionals also turned the tide against him-South Cambridgeshire, currently under Lib Dem control, was the only authority other than Cambridge to vote for Labour's Nik Johnson in round 2 but it was enough for Nik Johnson to win. The transfers from the Lib Dems' Aidan van de Weyer, who topped the poll in South Cambridgeshire, were even more decisive in Cambridge where he came second in that mayoral race. In the West of England, Dan Norris' promise to support a "Green Recovery Fund" undoubtedly gained him considerable second preferences from Green voters, and not just in Bristol either where former councillor Jerome Ungoed-Thomas came only 8.5% behind Mr Norris, who served as Labour MP for Wandsyke (the predecessor to North East Somerset, notoriously represented by Jacob Rees-Mogg) from 1997 to 2010. In the second round Mr Norris' win over Samuel Williams (Tim Bowles did not stand for re-election, saying he was retiring to pursue other interests) was decisive enough that the inclusion of North Somerset in the West of England Mayoral region (which was vetoed by Bristol earlier this year) which would likely have delivered a closer result than expected, would not have changed the outcome of that election. It is also clear that the considerable vote of John Savage, the Independent candidate who stood in 2017 but did not stand this year, proved helpful to Mr Norris' victory and Mr Ungoed-Thomas' excellent result; there was little change in the Conservative vote. 

As for the non-metro mayor mayoral elections, the furore around the resignation of Joe Anderson following his arrest on suspicion of bribery and witness and intimidation, combined with Labour's decision to re-open the selection process after the first round and bar the original three shortlisted candidates from standing (no explanation was given initially, but it is now believed that this was done to stop Anna Rothery, endorsed by Corbynite Labour MPs, from becoming Mayor of Liverpool and to replace her with a candidate favoured by Sir Keir Starmer and co), led to Labour suffering their worst ever result in a Liverpudlian election for decades. Joanne Anderson polled just 38.15% in the first round, giving hope that the founder of KIND, Stephen Yip, might claim a surprise victory. However, with a lot of second round transfers being lost, Ms Anderson managed a decisive hold in the end. Meanwhile the Conservatives lost their deposit for the third time in a row. In Bristol, the Greens managed an excellent second place, the first time the Green Party made it into the second round of a mayoral election in the UK, coming only 14,179 votes behind Labour incumbent Marvin Rees. Even though a lot of votes from George Ferguson, who did not try to reclaim the mayoralty, transferred over to the Greens (and to a lesser extent, the Liberal Democrats and the Conservatives), it was not enough for the Greens to defeat Labour, even as they levelled with them in terms of council seats in Bristol and even though Labour's unwillingness to support climate initiatives in Bristol was known. In Doncaster, the Conservatives hoped to capitalise on demographic change in Doncaster becoming more favourable to them, but in the end Ros Jones of Labour was easily re-elected even though transfers from ex-English Democrat Frank Calladine (standing as an Independent) and the Yorkshire Party would not have been that favourable to her. North Tyneside showed the lowest swing of these elections, and Norma Redfearn's easy hold for Labour in round one shows that Newcastle and North Tyneside, who have the most progressive politics in the North East, have no time for Boris Johnson's rhetoric. In Salford, Labour won in the first round for the first time, even though the absence of a UKIP candidate was expected to be more helpful to the Conservatives, but this proved not to be the case. The Greens saved their deposit in all five of those mayoral elections for the very first time, further cementing their rise in British politics. 

The Police & Crime Commissioners showed a substantial consolidation of the two-party vote on important posts as the Mayoral elections did for the most part. Not a single independent candidate won a PCC election, and the only independent PCC to stand for re-election, Martin Surl, came third behind the Liberal Democrats in Gloucestershire. Dan Hardy, endorsed by retiring independent PCC Martyn Underhill in Dorset, was in fact the only independent to even make the second round, with Kevin Hurley spectacularly failing to regain his post in Surrey and Sue Mountstevens' deputy, John Smith, finishing fifth as an independent in Avon & Somerset; furthermore David Munro, who stood as an Independent after being deselected by the Conservatives, finished last in Surrey with 12.1%. The Conservatives swept most of these elections, losing not one of the PCC posts they had won in 2016 and gaining six from Labour, namely Cheshire, Cleveland, Derbyshire, Humberside, Lancashire, and Nottinghamshire, with the West Yorkshire post being absorbed into the Metro Mayor's office there as was the case with Greater Manchester's. Labour only gained a single PCC post, that from Plaid Cymru in North Wales, primarily because Plaid Cymru narrowly came third excluding them from the second round. Had Ann Griffith outpolled Labour she would have won on transfers, even with voters in Clwyd not naturally favourable towards Plaid Cymru as they are in Gwynedd. Of the 8 PCC posts Labour hold, three are in Wales (North Wales, South Wales, and Gwent) although ironically they held the PCC posts of Northumbria and Durham despite their setbacks in both Northumberland and Durham in the local elections. The Greens, meanwhile, greatly improved on their 2016 results in the PCC elections, with former Lord Mayor of Bristol Cleo Lake polling 16.4% in Bristol, where the most significant Black Lives Matter protest in Britain last year happened, culminating in the toppling of Edward Colston's statue. Furthermore all the Green candidates for PCC saved their deposits, whereas the Liberal Democrats lost six deposits, including three out of four in the four PCC elections in Wales, at the same time as making it into the second round of a PCC election for the first time, namely in Gloucestershire, Hertfordshire, Surrey, and Wiltshire, although the last of these has been declared void due to Jonathon Seed, the victorious Conservative candidate, being ineligible for the post over a historic drink-driving conviction (anyone who has ever been convicted of an imprisonable criminal offence cannot become a Police & Crime Commissioner, even if the conviction is spent and even if the conviction happened in childhood). The PCC elections incidentally featured the only saved deposit (out of elections requiring deposits to be paid) for Reform UK, in West Mercia where Peter Jewell polled 5.06%.

Dafydd Llewelyn's re-election as Plaid Cymru PCC for Dyfed-Powys (the majority of the Mid & West Wales Senedd region) now makes him the only PCC not from the Conservatives and Labour, and in a worrying development the Conservatives have announced plans to pass legislation that would change the supplementary vote system for all Mayoral and PCC elections to first past the post, even though this would have changed the overall outcome of just one such PCC election that happened this year (that of North Wales) and even though voters are not particularly dissatisfied with the system. Turnout significantly improved compared to 2016 but it is clear that many voters see the post as a waste of taxpayers' money, and the strict requirements and £5000 deposit rule out a lot of credible candidates, hence turnout remaining well below that of local elections in the area. In fact turnout was overall lowest where no local elections were taking place simultaneously (e.g. Bedfordshire, Dorset).