Today we speak to Ben Houchen, the Conservative mayor for Tees Valley who was given a life peerage by Boris Johnson. Adam speaks to Ben about his role as mayor, how he got into politics and how he managed to defeat national trends to hold his position in the 2024 local elections. Ben explains why he thinks the party should have gone shorter with their leadership campaign and his relationship with former Prime Minister Boris Johnson. You can join our Newscast online community here: https://tinyurl.com/newscastcommunityhere Newscast brings you daily analysis of the latest political news stories from the BBC. It was presented by Adam Fleming. It was made by Jack Maclaren with Gemma Roper and Sam McLaren. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The assistant editor is Chris Gray. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham
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Welcome to part two of newscasts Weekend Bender, if you don't get the gag, let me explain.
Laura and Paddy are off this weekend, so I'm filling in.
And we decided to experiment with a bit of a new format where each episode is me sitting down and having a fairly long chat with one other person about an interesting aspect of their life.
And by pure coincidence, both episodes feature a man called Ben.
So we thought, why not make the virtue of it and call it the newscast weekend bender?
So here is part two of the bender.
Today's Ben is Ben Houtchen, Lord Houghtchen, who is the conservative mayor of Teez Valley in the northeast of England.
He is 37 years old and he won his first election as mayor of Tees Valley in 2017.
And as such, he became a poster boy for a new kind of conservatism, one that was picked up and run with by Boris Johnson, and one which some people think maybe could get the Conservatives back into government sooner rather than later.
So here is my conversation with Ben Houthin.
Mister mayor.
Newscast newscast from the BBC.
Hello, Mister Mayor.
Hello.
Thanks for having me on.
Well, thanks for coming on.
Or actually, should I call you Lord Houghton?
How do you feel about being a lord?
Ben is just fine.