Tory Hopes Are Hanging On The West Midlands Mayoral Race

Conservative nerves are on a knife-edge ahead of the local elections this week, and those still hoping their party might have a fighting chance of avoiding obliteration at the next general election will be paying particularly close attention to the West Midlands.

Polling data has indicated a narrow race for the West Midlands mayoralty between Conservative incumbent Andy Street and Labour's candidate Richard Parker. Electoral experts predict that the winner will be a "bellwether" for how the demographically diverse region could swing at the general election. A loss of Street in the Midlands or Teeside's Tory mayor Ben Houchen in the North East when voters go to the polls this Thursday is also widely considered to be the next possible touch-point for a fresh combustion of the volatile parliamentary Conservative party. 

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak must call a general election before the end of this year, and a chaotic few years for his party has translated into near-certainty that Labour will be returned as the next government. Street, tellingly, has distanced his mayoral campaign from the broader Conservative brand, having already faced off against Downing Street when Sunak scrapped the Birmingham to Manchester leg of high speed railway HS2 at Conservative party conference last year. 

Chris Hopkins, political research director at polling company Savanta, observed that Street was fighting the mayoral race "as close to an independent as a Conservative candidate can be", which he believed was likely to play to the incumbent candidate's advantage. 

"Much is made of his literature and how it doesn't really reference the party," he told PoliticsHome.  

"It's maybe not a bad strategy for him because he is reasonably popular locally. He