Some local leaders have built national profiles in the recent turbulence, but now it’s time to face the regional vote again
There was a telling moment on the local election campaign trail in Gloucester this week when Boris Johnson was asked if he knew who the West of England mayor was.
Waffle ensued. Johnson – who once said that as the first prime minister since Clement Attlee to have been a mayor, he knew the “the transformative potential of local, accountable leadership” – evidently did not know that since 2017 the Conservative party’s Tim Bowles has been the “metro mayor” of the region he was visiting.
