'Brand Andy' nearly helped outgoing Mayor stay in office - he'll hate valiant loser role
Peter Ustinov is famously quoted as saying he could handle the despair, it was the hope that killed him. And that is probably how Andy Street will be feeling now.
In the tightest of possible contests, it looked for a long time as if the now ex-mayor of the West Midlands might achieve the impossible by pulling off a remarkable victory in defiance of all logic.
With Labour running 20 points ahead in the polls, and the region hardly being a Tory stronghold, conventional wisdom suggested this should have been an easy win for Mr Parker. But Mr Street has never been a conventional politician.
From the very beginning, Mr Street's campaign was all about what he called 'Brand Andy'. Throughout the campaign he placed as much distance as possible between himself and the party at Westminster. When criticised for distributing green leaflets which downplayed his party allegiance, he said he was 'not a Conservative mayor, but a mayor who was a Conservative'.
"It is utterly deliberate to position it as an individual 'brand Andy' campaign," he said.
