Conservatives will be jittery as ‘Blue Wall’ starts to crumble

BEN Bradley was undoubtedly one of the key figures spearheading the creation of the East Midlands Mayor role, having been accused by his opponents of simply creating himself another job.

That accusation rested on the now flawed assumption that the mayoral election would be a shoo-in for Mr Bradley, given his local profile.

Instead, the Mansfield MP, county council leader and unsuccessful mayoral candidate drops down to “two jobs Bradley”. Much of the national media’s attention in terms of the mayoral races has been focused on the Tees Valley and the West Midlands, but the result of the East Midlands Mayor election will be causing some incredible jitters for Nottinghamshire’s Conservatives.

It is not just that Labour secured an absolutely romping victory in this election, it is how they did it. Outside the city boundary, Nottinghamshire has its solid Conservative areas like Newark and Rushcliffe.

The county is also home to several constituencies that formed part of the apparent “Blue Wall” formed after Boris Johnson’s general election victory in 2019, chief among them being the North Notts trio of Ashfield, Bassetlaw and Mansfield. For both of these categories, there were bad results for the Conservatives.

Although by a slimmer margin than in other areas, Labour were victorious in Rushcliffe, the constituency held for decades by Ken Clarke. As for the “Blue Wall”, these results show the first sign that it is beginning to crumble.

Labour secured a victory in Ashfield by some margin and despite the defection of Lee Anderson to Reform, that party ended up finishing in fourth place behind the independent candidate Matt Relf. In fact, the Conservatives were only ahead in just one Nottinghamshire constituency Newark.

Worryingly for the Tories then, this East Midlands Mayor election is broadly mirroring the situation which several polls are predicting in Nottinghamshire at the general election, in which Newark will be the only constituency still held by the Conservatives. The most telling comments about the national party’s popularity here came from Mr Bradley himself, who said he was simply unable to “turn the tide.”

Make no mistake, this was the first major test for Labour in Nottinghamshire on whether Keir Starmer has done enough since 2019 to attract the county’s voters back to the party. The indications for him and his prospective MPS from this vote are incredibly positive.

Further elections also loom for Mr Bradley, with the option of standing again for Mansfield MP this year and as a Nottinghamshire County Council member next year. Yet this election is about much more than the job of one Nottinghamshire Conservative, for the scale of today’s loss must be concentrating Tory minds across the region on what their future holds.