After a recount and a knife-edge head to head, Labour’s Richard Parker has won the mayoralty in the West Midlands to defeat Andy Street.

Dick Parker: 225,590 votes – 37.8%
Andy Street: 224,082 votes – 37.5%

It clearly didn’t matter how much Street distanced himself from the national party during the campaign in the end. Losing a two-term mayor will make impossible for the Tories to spin their ‘everything is fine’ line. Truly disastrous expectation management from the Tories – who strongly claimed it would be a winner…