Ben Houchen is the Mayor of Tees Valley and Paul Bristow is the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
We are two Conservative mayors who beat Labour in places they took for granted. Ben’s win in the Tees Valley in 2017 was called a shock, because the area had long been seen as Labour territory. When Paul stood in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Labour had held the mayoralty for four years and he wasn’t supposed to win.
Success has looked different in each of our areas, but we won the same way. We worked hard and set out a deliverable plan that voters could judge us on.
Ben told Teesside he would save its airport from closure, and he did. In July it landed a £50 million deal that will bring 250 skilled jobs and a new global headquarters. The same approach sits behind Teesworks, the first mayoral development corporation outside London, which is regenerating the largest brownfield site in western Europe. Voters noticed. Ben was re-elected in 2021 with nearly 73 per cent of the vote, and in 2024 he won all five council areas.
Paul’s promise was to get Cambridgeshire and Peterborough moving. On his first day he scrapped a target to cut car miles by 15 per cent by 2030. He has since secured funding to keep £1 bus fares for under-25s running to March 2027, with more than five million journeys on the pass so far, and saved rural bus routes that were due to disappear. Peterborough Station Quarter has moved into construction, the Business Board has been reformed as promised, and a Local Growth Plan sets out how to triple the economy to £97 billion by 2050.
The lesson is simple. Say what you will do, do it, and voters will back you, whatever Labour assumes about the postcode.
That is why we are both backing Sir James Cleverly to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London. London has been run by Labour for a decade, and plenty of people have decided it always will be. We think they are wrong, and our own records are part of the reason.
What happens in London matters in Teesside and Peterborough too. London produces 22 per cent of the UK’s economic output. It pays 27 per cent of income tax with 14 per cent of the population, and more than a third of corporation tax. In 2022/23 it raised £43.6 billion more than it received in public spending, which helps fund services across the country, including in our regions.
Andy Burnham thinks London is in competition with Manchester, Teesside, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. It isn’t. London competes with New York, Paris and Tokyo, and when it wins, places like Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and Teesside win too.
London is in a worse position than when Sadiq Khan took over. Knife crime has risen from under 10,000 offences a year to nearly 14,000. Shoplifting has doubled, and more than 71,000 phones were stolen last year. The Met has around 400 fewer officers than ten years ago, and it was the only force in the country to miss its police uplift target. London needs 88,000 homes a year, yet private-sector starts came to just 2,103 in the first quarter of 2026. A thriving London helps our areas, and a London that falls behind holds them back.
James Cleverly understands what delivery takes, and he judges London by three tests. Do you feel safe walking home alone at night? Can you afford to build a future here for you and your family? And are you proud of our capital? Under Sadiq Khan, too many Londoners cannot answer yes to all three. James is a Londoner, born in Lewisham, who served eight years on the London Assembly before running the Home Office and the Foreign Office, and he knows what it takes to turn those answers around.
London is not a Labour city. It is a city that has been run by Labour for a decade, and Londoners can see the results. We have shown elsewhere what happens when Conservatives back a mayor with a plan and the will to deliver it. James can do that for London, and when London succeeds, the whole country benefits.
Ben Houchen is the Mayor of Tees Valley and Paul Bristow is the Mayor of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough
We are two Conservative mayors who beat Labour in places they took for granted. Ben’s win in the Tees Valley in 2017 was called a shock, because the area had long been seen as Labour territory. When Paul stood in Cambridgeshire and Peterborough, Labour had held the mayoralty for four years and he wasn’t supposed to win.
Success has looked different in each of our areas, but we won the same way. We worked hard and set out a deliverable plan that voters could judge us on.
Ben told Teesside he would save its airport from closure, and he did. In July it landed a £50 million deal that will bring 250 skilled jobs and a new global headquarters. The same approach sits behind Teesworks, the first mayoral development corporation outside London, which is regenerating the largest brownfield site in western Europe. Voters noticed. Ben was re-elected in 2021 with nearly 73 per cent of the vote, and in 2024 he won all five council areas.
Paul’s promise was to get Cambridgeshire and Peterborough moving. On his first day he scrapped a target to cut car miles by 15 per cent by 2030. He has since secured funding to keep £1 bus fares for under-25s running to March 2027, with more than five million journeys on the pass so far, and saved rural bus routes that were due to disappear. Peterborough Station Quarter has moved into construction, the Business Board has been reformed as promised, and a Local Growth Plan sets out how to triple the economy to £97 billion by 2050.
The lesson is simple. Say what you will do, do it, and voters will back you, whatever Labour assumes about the postcode.
That is why we are both backing Sir James Cleverly to be the Conservative candidate for Mayor of London. London has been run by Labour for a decade, and plenty of people have decided it always will be. We think they are wrong, and our own records are part of the reason.
What happens in London matters in Teesside and Peterborough too. London produces 22 per cent of the UK’s economic output. It pays 27 per cent of income tax with 14 per cent of the population, and more than a third of corporation tax. In 2022/23 it raised £43.6 billion more than it received in public spending, which helps fund services across the country, including in our regions.
Andy Burnham thinks London is in competition with Manchester, Teesside, and Cambridgeshire and Peterborough. It isn’t. London competes with New York, Paris and Tokyo, and when it wins, places like Peterborough, Cambridgeshire and Teesside win too.
London is in a worse position than when Sadiq Khan took over. Knife crime has risen from under 10,000 offences a year to nearly 14,000. Shoplifting has doubled, and more than 71,000 phones were stolen last year. The Met has around 400 fewer officers than ten years ago, and it was the only force in the country to miss its police uplift target. London needs 88,000 homes a year, yet private-sector starts came to just 2,103 in the first quarter of 2026. A thriving London helps our areas, and a London that falls behind holds them back.
James Cleverly understands what delivery takes, and he judges London by three tests. Do you feel safe walking home alone at night? Can you afford to build a future here for you and your family? And are you proud of our capital? Under Sadiq Khan, too many Londoners cannot answer yes to all three. James is a Londoner, born in Lewisham, who served eight years on the London Assembly before running the Home Office and the Foreign Office, and he knows what it takes to turn those answers around.
London is not a Labour city. It is a city that has been run by Labour for a decade, and Londoners can see the results. We have shown elsewhere what happens when Conservatives back a mayor with a plan and the will to deliver it. James can do that for London, and when London succeeds, the whole country benefits.