by UnHerd
Tuesday, 11
May 2021
Video
07:00

Mayor Ben Houchen: why Tories are winning the North

Freddie Sayers spoke to Teesside's newly re-elected Conservative mayor
by UnHerd


There’s a stereotype of England’s North-Eastern cities as left-behind, backward-facing, clinging to a long-gone industrial past. Some Labour politicians have even tried to play up to this image too, but it could not, says Teeside’s newly re-elected mayor Ben Houchen, be further from the truth. According to Houchen, who won 73% of the Teeside vote in last week’s by-election, voters in Hartlepool and Teesside aren’t nostalgic, they are looking to the future. His ambition is to turn Teesside into the Silicon Valley of the UK.

On the doorstep, people were telling me,we want you to pull down the steelworks”. My Labour opponent wanted to keep it as a monument and people thought it was crazy. We have nearly 200 years of steel and iron making heritage on Teesside. People are saying “well, that’s fine, and it’s something we should be proud of but that doesn’t put food on my table”…it’s about pairing that pride and using that expertise so that we can future-proof it. That’s why I’m confident that if we continue in the direction that we’re going in 10 years time, Teesside will be one of the world’s centres for low carbon green technologies and become synonymous with Silicon Valley in the US.
- Ben Houchen, UnHerd

On the Labour disconnect:


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There’s absolutely a huge disconnect with the Labour Party to areas like Teesside and the North-East. They have moved away from what was culturally and traditionally in alignment with the local people… It’s very insular, inward-looking navel-gazing that the Labour Party has been going through over the last five or six years at least, which has caused them a huge problem and is something they still really struggle with.
- Ben Houchen, UnHerd

On the ideology of Teesside:

There is a social democrat twinge to people in Teesside. They are socially conservative but by and large, they are much more centrist when it comes to economic policies than elsewhere in the country. People are less wedded to the ideological rights and wrongs of economic policy; they’re more interested in outcomes. It’s not because people don’t have beliefs in those things, but we are an area that has been neglected for many decades by governments of both colours.
- Ben Houchen, UnHerd

On Teeside’s patriotism

There is a huge pride both historically and currently for our armed forces, the UK, the queen, and the flag. I would suggest if people did some pretty serious polling on those ideas, we would probably come out close to if not top compared to most areas of the country.
- Ben Houchen, UnHerd

On the Teesside freeport:

General Electric have decided that it’s more cost effective to come to Teesside and build a brand new facility, rather than expand the existing facility in Cherbourg, France because the freeport status saves them tens of millions of pounds in capital expenditure. These are exactly the type of jobs we want to create.
- Ben Houchen, UnHerd

On Milton Friedman’s influence:

One of the things that informed my politics around commercial delivery was actually something that Milton Friedman said a long time ago, which there is no difference in the way the public and private sectors are run. Because they’re all people…Ultimately, the problem you find with government organisations is that once they begin to fail, they’re not allowed to fail, and they then get subsidised…We’ve been very clear with the public, for example, on the airport. We’ve said, this is a risk, and we are going to do it because that’s what you voted for me to do, but it could still fail.
- Ben Houchen, UnHerd

On wallpapergate:

The people ridicule the media for concentrating on it and they ridicule the picture of Keir Starmer in the shop with his roll of wallpaper. They just think it’s a very London centric.

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John Harding
John Harding
2 years ago

On the 20th of April 1968, Enoch Powell made this speech in Birmingham

You will have heard of this speech the rivers of blood but have you ever listened to it?
So listen to it and tell me that what he said has not come to pass Enoch Powell was a
Profit, but as it says in the bible a Profit is not listened to in his own land?
But all governments have ignored his Profacy why “cheap labour.”
There has never been a job that would not be done by a British worker but they wanted, paying for the work but the ideal rich employers (makes me sound like a communist but I am not) did not want to pay so got the government to get more immigrants to do that work for Penneys
But as time went on they wanted, paying they just got more immigrants in to do it and so the cycle continues.
Now listen to the speech.

On youtube
Enoch Powell rivers of blood. Full Speech

Alexandre Burmester
Alexandre Burmester
2 years ago

Just wondering when this centrist, “social-democratic”, outlook will dawn on Merseyside…

Hugh Eveleigh
Hugh Eveleigh
2 years ago

Great conversation from which I learnt much. It all sounds most exciting and Mr Houchen is just the fellow for the job as he exudes commitment and vision. Congratulations to him and, well, onwards!

Fraser Bailey
Fraser Bailey
2 years ago

I watched this on YT last night. Very interesting, and anything is better than Labour, as we all know.

Colin Haller
Colin Haller
2 years ago

It’s industrial policy and targeted subsidies — and it’s long past overdue. Good for them for embracing pragmatism and ditching the lunacy that only the private sector, or the public sector for that matter, is capable. As one needs two legs, so the mixed economy needs both working in harmony.

Last edited 2 years ago by Colin Haller
Joseph De Francesco
Joseph De Francesco
2 years ago

A fast and furious articulation of focused, coherent and well balanced point of views regarding economics, politics, and local constituency needs and wants ever presented by local mayor I have seen. Something NYC Mayor de Blasio will never attain nor comprehend. Mr Ben Houchen has the gifts, talents and brains for a greater good for UK’s future.

Max Beran
Max Beran
2 years ago

Okay; but you mostly get the party line from interviewees like this one so I think Freddie’s on to a loser trying to draw anything very insightful or analytical from figures like Ben Houchen.

Andrea X
Andrea X
2 years ago

Must watch it today. But why do you call it “by election”? It should be the “delayed election”.

Peter Scotts
Peter Scotts
2 years ago

In all the election preamble on radio and TV from the North of England I never heard grooming gangs mentioned, or the Labour parties apparent silence on the matter when it was happening. Is it all forgotten in that part of the world or edited out when raised.

Oldham Heart
Oldham Heart
2 years ago

The greatest analogy ever spoken was Friedman on the subject of buying gifts, which is on YouTube somewhere I’m sure.
Local Labour councils are the encapsulation of his analogy, right across the north, as well as the South. It’s a ‘red’ thing.
The final part went something like-
When you are spending money on yourself and it is not your money, then you really don’t care what it costs, or, if it is wasteful and pointless . . . Because you are not paying, the Council tax payer does that. Council Tax in Hartlepool for a band ‘D’ is about £2395, whereas in the typical South East, Conservative council, it is £1290. The poorest parts of this nation, with a population on the lowest wages, pay the highest band rate for council tax.
Labour needs to stop throwing money vanity projects and concentrate on cleaning the streets