Ben Houchen and Rishi Sunak put on a united Tory front today, hours after the re-elected Tees Valley mayor failed to mention the Prime Minister in his victory speech and conspicuously failed to wear a blue party rosette.
Lord Houchen paid a gushing tribute to Mr Sunak as they shared the limelight after the peer secured a third term – with a much reduced majority.
After appearing on stage at the count without a Tory rosette, Lord Houchen – a close ally of Boris Johnson – said he was ‘absolutely humbled’ and would ‘redouble’ his work, without mentioning Mr Sunak. Afterwards he made clear he could ‘work with’ Sir Keir if he becomes PM.
Like his counterpart in the West Midlands, Andy Street, Lord Houchen has faced claims that he had distanced himself from the Tory brand in order to win while the party languished in the polls.
But appearing with the PM at Teesside Airport he lavished praise on the party leader, saying: ‘I could not have delivered the things that we have delivered in this region without you prime minister, whether it is the freeport in Redcar, whether it is bringing the Treasury… to Darlington, creating hundreds and hundreds of jobs, it is going to be 2,000 in a couple of years, 9000 jobs created by the freeport…
‘Teesside wouldn’t have had those things if it was not for the contribution you made, Prime Minister, so thank you for everything you have done as well.’
Lord Houchen paid a gushing tribute to Mr Sunak as they shared the limelight after the peer secured a third term – with a much reduced majority.
Tory Ben Houchen was re-installed as the mayor of the Tees Valley today – but failed to mention Rishi Sunak in his victory speech and conspicuously failed to wear a blue party rosette.
Lord Houchen was re-elected for the second time with a majority of 18,789, after getting 81,930 votes, 53.64 per cent of the total, ahead of Labour’s Chris McEwan.
But it was markedly smaller majority than in 2021, when he beat Labour by 76,343.
Asked why he did not wear a rosette he said: ‘I have done at previous elections and the honest answer is I didn’t have one and I forgot it. But I’ve got my blue socks on and my blue tie on…
‘The idea that we are trying to pretend I’m not Conservative, I mean people know round here that I’m a Conservative, but thankfully what we’ve seen today is they also know that I’m a Teessider, and I’ll put Teesside first, I’ll put local people first and I’ll do what’s best for the local area.’
Asked whether he could have borrowed a blue rosette from someone else, he said: ‘No, we did rumble around in some bags and we were hoping to find one but we couldn’t find one… we were too busy focused on the result.’
Mr Sunak inspected the Passing Out Parade of Parachute Regiment recruits on a visit to the Catterick Garrison in his constituency today
Like his counterpart in the West Midlands, Andy Street, Lord Houchen has faced claims that he had distanced himself from the Tory brand in order to win while the party languished in the polls.
In his victory speech today, Lord Houchen said his re-election was ‘the greatest honour anyone could give me’.
Thanking both his supporters and his opponents, he said: ‘Let’s keep pushing for a better Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool, let’s deliver more jobs, more investment.’
Labour had already conceded defeat, but said the party had secured a large enough swing to win every parliamentary seat in the region and claimed Lord Houchen had run his campaign as a ‘pseudo-independent’.
A Labour spokesman said: ‘If Rishi Sunak doesn’t take this result as a major wake-up call he is in denial.’
The mayor denied he had not been campaigning as a Conservative or mentioning Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in his campaign literature during the contest.
He told Sky News: ‘We absolutely don’t shy away from that at all, and Rishi’s been up during the campaign and we have always said Rishi’s been a great friend to the people of Teesside, Darlington and Hartlepool.’
He added that Mr Sunak had been ‘a huge champion for this area’.
But he added that he would work with anyone ‘to get what I need to get’, including Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer if he became prime minister.