{"id":42347,"date":"2024-05-03T20:17:37","date_gmt":"2024-05-03T20:17:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/03\/lord-ben-houchen-absolutely-willing-to-work-with-starmer-if-tories-lose-general-election\/"},"modified":"2024-05-03T20:17:37","modified_gmt":"2024-05-03T20:17:37","slug":"lord-ben-houchen-absolutely-willing-to-work-with-starmer-if-tories-lose-general-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/05\/03\/lord-ben-houchen-absolutely-willing-to-work-with-starmer-if-tories-lose-general-election\/","title":{"rendered":"Lord Ben Houchen ‘absolutely’ willing to work with Starmer if Tories lose general election"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Lord Ben Houchen has said he will work with Sir Keir Starmer if the Labour leader is elected prime minister.<\/p>\n

The Tees Valley mayor was successfully re-elected in the year’s election, albeit with a much reduced majority – and if the swing against the Conservatives in the region was repeated at a general election, Labour would hold the keys to Number 10.<\/p>\n

Lord Houchen was made a peer by Boris Johnson, and has been seen as the pinnacle of the Conservatives<\/strong><\/a>‘ presence in the “Red Wall”.<\/p>\n

Local election results: Labour wins in PM’s constituency<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

But his majority dropped substantially compared to the previous election, taking 53.6% of the vote compared to 41.3% for Labour<\/strong><\/a>; in the last vote in 2021 Mr Houchen won by 72.8% to 27.2% against Labour.<\/p>\n

This swing – of 16.7% – would see Labour win all the parliamentary seats in the area.<\/p>\n

Speaking to Sophy Ridge, Lord Houchen was asked if he would be willing to work with a Labour prime minister.<\/p>\n

He said: “Absolutely.<\/p>\n

“I mean, Keir Starmer<\/strong><\/a>‘s come out and said he’s going to double down on devolution, which is a huge change – it’s a 180 from what they did in 2019 when they were talking about abolishing mayors.<\/p>\n

“There is now Keir Starmer saying he’s going to give us more money and more powers, which gives me more autonomy to get on and do what I do best, which is deliver for local people.”<\/p>\n

Collaborative history<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lord Houchen highlighted his history of working with Labour councils in his region.<\/p>\n

The mayor rubbished suggestions he had distanced himself from the national Conservative brand in his campaign.<\/p>\n

Read more:
Starmer says time for Sunak to face nation<\/a>
Local elections – the story so far in maps and charts<\/a>
Not even Blair’s Labour delivered this shocking blow<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

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‘Labour threw kitchen sink at Tees Valley’
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Sophy asked the mayor about his lack of a blue rosette during his victory lap.<\/p>\n

No blue rosette<\/strong><\/p>\n

Lord Houchen said: “The honest answer is I didn’t have one, and I forgot it.<\/p>\n

“But I’ve got my blue socks on and my blue tie on, and we’ve had Rishi up during the election.<\/p>\n

“So, you know, the idea that we are trying to pretend that I’m not Conservative – I mean, people know around here I’m a Conservative.<\/p>\n

“But thankfully what we’ve seen today is they also know that I’m a Teessider and that I’ll put Teesside first, I’ll put local people first, and I’ll do what’s best for the local area.”<\/p>\n

Sunak defiant<\/strong><\/p>\n

Following the victory the prime minister visited Teesside Airport – an emblem of Lord Houchen’s time in charge after he nationalised it – and said Labour could not “dislodge” the mayor despite two visits from Sir Keir, three from shadow chancellor Rachel Reeves, and the opposition throwing “a lot of mud”.<\/p>\n

Rishi Sunak<\/strong><\/a> added: “I’ve got a message for the Labour Party, too, because they know that they had to win here in order to win a general election – they know that.<\/p>\n

“They assumed that Tees Valley would just stroll back to them. But it didn’t.”<\/p>\n

The 16.7% swing Labour achieved in the Tees race is higher than the 12.7% swing they need nationally to win a general election.<\/p>\n

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\n Lord Houchen celebrating the victory with Rishi Sunak. Pic: PA
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Labour’s shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, told Sky News that Lord Houchen ran “a very strong incumbency campaign – almost as an independent, you couldn’t find Conservative branding anywhere near his campaign”.<\/p>\n

He claimed voters were saying they were backing Lord Houchen in the mayoral election, but would vote Labour at the general election.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n


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Lord Ben Houchen has said he will work with Sir Keir Starmer if the Labour leader is elected prime minister. The Tees Valley mayor was successfully re-elected in the year’s election, albeit with a much reduced majority – and if the swing against the Conservatives in the region was repeated at a general election, Labour […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":42348,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/e3.365dm.com\/24\/05\/768x432\/skynews-elections-conservatives_6541768.jpg?20240503143410","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[603],"tags":[3659,1958,50,1032,43684,35,210,3960,3440,1396],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42347"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":42349,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/42347\/revisions\/42349"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/42348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=42347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=42347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}