Ben Houchen victory bucks anti-Tory trend as Labour wins three mayoral contests

Wins in East Midlands, North East, and York and North Yorkshire suggest Labour on course for general election success

The Conservatives held on to their high-profile Tees Valley mayoralty with a reduced majority for Ben Houchen in the mayoral elections, but Labour won three other contests, in the East Midlands, North East and Rishi Sunak’s own patch of North Yorkshire.

Houchen was re-elected with a 16.5 percentage point swing to Labour. He won 81,930 votes (53.6%) against 63,141 (41.3%) for Labour and 7,679 (5%) for the Liberal Democrats. At the last election he won 73% of the votes.