After losing the election to become the Conservative mayor of the West Midlands last May – had he won, it would have been his third term – Andy Street has barely been seen in public life. “I had a little rest and good holidays,” Street, an effulgent yet spiky figure, told me when we met in Birmingham city centre recently. Since Street stepped away from front-line politics, the Tory Party has gone through an existential crisis – suffering a crushing general election defeat; deposing its leader; electing a new one – and is now trailing in the polls to not only an unpopular Labour government but also to Nigel Farage’s insurgent Reform party. How much time, I ask Street, had he spent during his sun-soaked break fretting about the state of his beloved party? “Not a lot!” he retorted over his cappuccino with a stifled smile.
Street did make one notable public appearance in the past year. He gave the welcome speech at the 2024 Conservative Party conference, held in Birmingham last autumn, when its members were both deciding who would lead the party in opposition and soul-searching over the future of conservatism. “A little message for those bidding this week to lead this party,” Street said, referring to the remaining protagonists Robert Jenrick and eventual winner Kemi Badenoch. His call was simple: the best strategy for electoral success was the party positioning itself on the centre-right of British politics. “I wanted to show you how moderate conservatism was still a winning force,” Street remarked in his speech. “Sadly,” he went on, “that was not to be.”
Indeed, it was not to be: Labour’s Richard Parker narrowly won the West Midlands mayoralty by 1,508 votes. If his brand of moderate conservatism is a “winning force”, I asked Street, why did he lose last May? He initially hesitated to blame his party’s reputational issues at the time, but noted: “We had it confirmed after 4 July [the general election] that the Conservative brand was considerably weakened; and I was the Conservative candidate back then.” Yet Street was firm in the belief that moderate conservatism was not at fault. Especially considering it saw him serve two mayoral terms in “the youngest, most diverse, second most urban place in Britain; a place no one expected the Conservatives to win”. He added: “The lesson from the West Midlands is that moderate conservatism is a much more effective electoral strategy than one that would take us to the hard right.”
What does “moderate conservatism” stand for? “Economic liberalism, but then you have to put it alongside social liberalism… thinking about difficult social issues and addressing them.” I asked Street which Conservative figure best embodies that spirit, noting that in 2022 he endorsed Liz Truss – whose fiscal liberalism sent the bond markets spiralling, and has since accused the party of going “woke” to win votes – for Tory leader and prime minister. “That’s not the relevant question,” Street abruptly interjected, but then quickly apologised. “The person who should have been leader of our party was Jeremy Hunt, and I backed him every time… he’s the nearest to that moderate, inclusive Conservative,” Street said. “I did choose Liz Truss. With the benefit of hindsight… she was not suitable to be prime minister. That’s an unquestionable fact.” He added: “I know why I made the choice I did, because I do buy some of her analysis about what was needed in terms of economic growth.”
But the Tories, after Street’s conference speech last year, chose as their leader not a moderate but Kemi Badenoch, who is firmly on the right of the party. “We don’t know that much about the Conservative Party’s emerging position, do we? The political agenda has moved on very quickly since the election, because the Labour government has been so unpopular and unsuccessful. The electorate does want to hear – and I am hungry to hear – where the party is going to pitch its tent,” Street said. He has been both pleased – in particular with the “impressive shadow chancellor”, Mel Stride – and disappointed – “I don’t find it particularly inclusive on some community and social issues” – with the party’s offering so far.
In May’s local elections, many traditional Conservative voters rejected the party and switched to Reform, which won 677 council seats of around 1,600 contested across England. Acknowledging the “hugely disappointing” results, Street doesn’t believe that his party should lurch right in response. “You don’t get anywhere by being defined by other people,” he said. “The only way to deal with Reform is by us saying: ‘This is what we believe in – the Labour government is failing… and the alternative future of Britain is this.’ That needs outlining, and you need to draw people to it.” He added: “We must not allow people to fall in love with Reform.”
In the absence of a broad political direction for the Conservatives – heightened by the losses across various councils – many have questioned whether Badenoch will lead the party at the next election. Prior to the 1 May locals, Street told me such talk was “ridiculous… premature”. Now, “The jury’s out, isn’t it?” He added: “The party is crying out for leadership… I want [Badenoch], as the leader of the party, to get it in the right place and put a message across confidently. The future is in her hands if she does that.”
Andy Street was born in Banbury, Oxfordshire, in June 1963. He is, however, Birmingham through and through. “My parents are both Brummies, my grandparents were; but my parents foolishly moved away for a few months and I was born in that period,” Street joked. “How careless!”
He was a late political bloomer, following an accomplished corporate career. After graduating from Oxford and having aspirations of working in social care dashed by Birmingham City Council, he soon faced more rejection, failing in an application to join the Marks & Spencer training scheme. He then joined rival John Lewis as a trainee in 1985; Street shot up the ranks and eventually served as the company’s managing director for ten years from 2007, until he ran for the mayoralty. “I gave up my job in John Lewis, which was paid a lot of money, to do a job that was not paid a lot of money – because I believe that the mayoral model for this place was the right way.”
The region’s local governance has come under question recently. In 2023, the settlement of a historical equal pay lawsuit triggered Birmingham City Council’s bankruptcy, and more recently, a strike by the authority’s refuse workers has caused thousands of tons’ worth of bin bags to pile up across England’s second city. Street blames a severe “lack of local leadership” for decimating Birmingham’s reputation: “It’s become an easy target for everyone.”
Those attacks have even come from those supposedly on Street’s side. He criticised those within his party who “talk about this place as a city that’s challenged, and draw it out over… principled issues”, such as its diverse, multicultural population. “They draw it out as an example justifying some of their [negative] views.” Why? “Because they think it’s reflective of the views of the country. That’s not what leadership is about.”
Street isn’t interested in returning to the front line of the Tory party – “the political door is closed” – but he does hope to convince its leadership of the values of moderate conservatism. “Leadership is about putting out something that you believe in, and then drawing other people to it – not holding a mirror to social attitudes which [aren’t] particularly attractive.” Kemi Badenoch, be warned: “I feel passionately about what Conservative leadership means; I’m not going to compromise, and I will continue to speak up for it.”
[See also: Modernity has killed the private life]
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This article appears in the 14 May 2025 issue of the New Statesman, Why George Osborne still runs Britain