Labour Wins GM Election: a narrow mandate, a continuity platform, and a borough still waiting

Bev Craig takes office as Mayor of Greater Manchester having won 309,525 votes to Sian Astley's 157,178, a second-round margin of 66.3 per cent to 33.7. She inherits transport, policing, housing and skills powers assembled over nine years, and a budget running to billions.

Turnout was 25.14 per cent, the lowest since the office was created. Craig's total amounts to roughly one in seven of those entitled to vote. That is not a criticism of her — she did not choose the date, and no candidate can compel people to the polls. But it could set the stage for what follows. A mayor with powers of this scale and a base of active consent this narrow should expect close questioning, and would be wise to welcome it.

The contest was also tighter on first preferences than the final figure implies. Neither candidate reached 50 per cent outright, which is why a second count was needed. Reform UK finished second across all ten boroughs at its first serious attempt at this office. Labour has held the mayoralty since it was created; it has now been taken to a second round in its strongest English region.

The substantive disagreement is about continuity. Craig campaigned on carrying forward the programme she inherits — the Bee Network, housing delivery, neighbourhood policing, further devolution talks with government. For Manchester that is a reasonable prospectus. For Rochdale it is the least attractive offer available, because the arrangement now being continued has not worked here. The borough sits at the end of a Metrolink line, with a rail service that has been unreliable for years, contributing to a city-region strategy whose most visible results are concentrated closer to the centre.

There is a fair answer to that, and it deserves stating. Craig's supporters argue that a Labour mayor working with a Labour government is better placed to win further devolved powers and the money attached to them, and that Rochdale gains more from that than from opposition. It is a serious argument. It is also a testable one, and the test is whether the borough's share of transport and housing investment rises over the next four years or stays where it is.

On policing, the mayor holds the powers of a Police and Crime Commissioner, which makes this the area where the office touches residents most directly. Our measure will be simple and public: response times, charge rates, and whether people who report a crime in this borough hear back. Those figures are published. We intend to use them.

The by-election itself carried a cost — the 2024 mayoral contest cost taxpayers £4.7 million, and this one is expected to run to millions again. That is a consequence of a sitting mayor leaving mid-term for Westminster, not of anything the new mayor did. But it is money spent on an election in which three quarters of the electorate did not participate, and it is reasonable to ask what the region got for it.

Craig begins with substantial powers and a quiet electorate. We will report what she does with them, and judge her on what changes in this borough rather than on what is announced in Manchester.