Until recently it would have been unthinkable that Labour could unseat Ben Houchen as Tees Valley Mayor. Now polls suggest Labour’s Chris McEwan is nipping at his heels. Canvassing in Middlesbrough he told the Mirror how he’s concentrating on winning.
“There’s only one poll that matters, and that’s the one on May 2nd,” Labour ’s Chris McEwan tells me as we embark on an afternoon of door knocking in his home town of Middlesbrough.
But it’s hard not to think a poll published earlier this week, which put him neck and neck with Tory poster boy Ben Houchen to be the next Tees Valley Metro Mayor, might matter just a little bit too.
Defeating Lord Houchen – who Rishi Sunak has long hailed as a Tory success story – would require a mammoth swing of 23%.
But even coming close would be bruising for Rishi Sunak.
“My main focus is 2nd May, winning the election,” Chris says, as if repeating a mantra to remind himself.
“I don’t want to think about anything outside of that. I’m working with my colleagues to speak to as many people to get my positive message across. And I take nothing – absolutely nothing – for granted.”
Chris’s manner on the doorstep is warm and familiar. Even if we weren’t canvassing a few streets away from where he went to secondary school, you get the impression he’d still be talking to everyone as if they’re a friend of a friend.
He was raised in Middlesbrough, later moving to Newcastle where he’s worked in the NHS for more than 30 years.
“Can you check if there’s a Mrs Allen on this road?” he asks an aide. “It’s my old chemistry teacher, I don’t know whether she’s moved. She was the nicest teacher”
He asks almost every person who answers the door to him while I’m there whether they know his old teacher, but we never track her down.
For the most part, the locals we meet have common complaints. Bins are too small and aren’t collected regularly enough. There are cracks and weeds in the pavement and potholes damaging their cars. The cost of living is biting hard, good opportunities for young people are hard to come by and public transport is unreliable and expensive.
“In North East language, people are brassed off,” Mr McEwan says.
“They’re sick of the Tories. Things are just getting tougher. I’m hearing time and time again that local working people don’t feel like they’re benefiting from all the Government’s announcements.”
“Big job announcements, the whole levelling up agenda – they don’t feel as though they’re benefitting. We need to be asking some serious questions about why that is.”
But Tees Valley has more than its fair share of unique and meaty political dramas too.
There’s a long-running row over whether Mr Houchen’s first flagship project – Teesside International Airport – is good value for taxpayers’ money.
There were the thousands of dead crustaceans that washed up on Saltburn beach in 2021, causing misery for coastal fishermen.
Campaigners linked it to dredging for the new Tees freeport – a claim Mr Houchen has strongly disputed. Scientists have yet to come up with a conclusive explanation.
And then there’s Teesworks – the sprawling project to regenerate the former Redcar steelworks. Ministers ordered a review of the project after claims private businessmen – who now own 90% of the shares – had profited at taxpayer expense.
While the report found no evidence of corruption, it said “governance and transparency issues” needed to be addressed, and some decisions by the body had not met “standards expected when managing public funds.”
Lord Houchen, who is to come forward with a plan to address the report’s 28 recommendations by September, this week defended the deal, saying he would have signed it “every day of the week”.
But Mr McEwan has vowed to open up the project’s books for scrutiny, and renegotiate a better value deal for taxpayers.
“I’ve always felt a bad deal was done,” he says. “Ultimately, I’m a taxpayer, you’re a taxpayer, you want to know whether tax dollar is being used to best effect, we’ve got the most bangs for our bucks.
“We’ve got Baron Houchen saying he would do that deal “every day of the week”, but we’ve got an independent report that says the recommendation from experts is that you need to renegotiate the deal. I’m flabbergasted.”
While he accepts it’s a complex issue, he thinks it’s “cut through” with local voters, and could have contributed to the general loss of faith in the Tories.
As if to illustrate the point, the voter behind the next door he knocks, an ex-steelworker who did not want to be named, is animated and furious about Teesworks.
“I read everything in [political magazine] Private Eye,” the man, now a self employed health and safety trainer says. “I probably could quiz you on Teesworks.”
“I think it’s a complex issue, but there’s increased awareness,” Chris says, ambling to the next street over.
“My campaign slogan is ‘a Mayor you can trust’ – and that’s not necessarily about anyone else, it’s about my core principles.
“It’s something I had when I started in politics 25 years ago, and it’s something I still believe I have now.
“I believe you should be open and transparent. It’s really important. I know it sounds old fashioned.”