Conservative Andy Street Facing Tough Re-Election Battle

National World - LocalTV

Conservative Andy street surprised many when he first won the race to become West Midlands mayor back in 2017. For the upcoming election in May he has been keen to play down party connections, but it's that connection that appears to be causing him problems.

Transcript

00:00Well, it's an interesting one. I mean, quite clearly, if we sort of take Street, you know,

00:04he's a sort of personality. He has a lot of respect. People sort of recognize him. He

00:07has a lot of credibility, and he seemed to be somebody with integrity. But when it comes

00:11down to it, sort of people, let's face it, when they get into the polling booth, they

00:16see the sort of the parties, and they are still sort of very tribal. But personality

00:20plays its sort of, it's a past this. And again, as I said, Street is not as unpopular as the

00:26sort of the National Conservative Party, which is the party of government, led by Rishi Sonek.

00:31Just to sort of add, there is a sort of a view that sort of if the sort of the locals

00:35go badly, and indeed the sort of Street goes, that's a real bellwether of sort of how bad

00:41things are going to be.

00:43According to a Redfield and Wilton poll, Street as the Conservative candidate is on 28%, down

00:49from 49% of first preference votes in 2021. The Liber candidate Richard Parker is on 42%

00:56up from Liam Byrne's 40% three years ago. However, a more recent poll by electoral maps

01:02has Street leading by 2%.

01:05It's interesting because mayoral elections are really hard to call. But of course, the

01:08context is we're in an election year, the sort of the national polls are sort of showing

01:12the sort of the National Party or the Conservative Party, the government, way, way behind. So

01:18that's a sense Street can sort of draw some comfort. He's more popular than the National

01:23Conservative Party. One suspects that sort of if this opinion poll is correct, and certainly

01:28the last time, it showed him with a sort of a really decent lead. And that's exactly how

01:32I won, although it was a different sort of voting system. So I suspect the Savandi Street

01:36may be looking for sort of a new opportunities come May the third.

01:41And this year's election candidates for mayor are as follows. Richard Parker for Liber,

01:46Andy Street for the Conservatives, Elion Williams for Reform UK, Siobhan Harper-Nunes for the

01:51Green Party, Sonny Burke for the Liberal Democrats and Ahmed Yacoub running independently.

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