Anyone think houchen will get back in?

I think there's little doubt that he's going to win. You shouldn't underestimate the sheer desperation, gullibility and ignorance of the local electorate - all you have to do is take a look at any facebook post about the airport, Teesworks, the mayoral election and it's clear that people have no idea and just suck up the hyperbole.

The power of social media is immense in an area like this, people take what they read on there as gospel and don't have the inclination to do any genuine research of their own, and unfortunately one thing you can't knock Ben for is the exploitation of this and his team's social media skills. This is what will win it for him.
Therefore we must do our bit to make our presence felt on social media. We all do ir. Make it work.
 
He has immense spending power both in the traditional and social media channels.

I'm surprised more hasn't been made of the fact that he would be effectively doing 2 jobs, unless he never attends The Lords.
 
It’s hard to judge based on social media comments as you get extremes from both sides but he does seem to have a lot of supporters. Hopefully the potential swing voters who will ultimately decide the election have paid some attention to the news that has come out over recent months and decide to get rid of him.

Either way so think it will all come out once Labour get in power and launch a full audit of his activities.
 
as we have mostly labour councils, mostly going to have labour MPs post election, surely it makes sense to have a labour mayor so that all these areas work together instead of against each other
Indeed it does. Can't see it happening myself. The local authorities should indeed be working together, Cleveland was split for a purpose.
 
Unfortunately, I think the answer is Yes. There is a serious shortage of snake oil in Teesside, which only Ben. T has access to. Even PD Ports can't get access to it.

How I hope that I'm wrong though.
 
He's a good grifter, I'll give him that.

I genuinely hope nobody falls for any of his lies about the airport.
Just as an example of how he twists things; he compared support for getting through Covid by using Liverpool and Luton as airports that had received help. Liverpool needed over 3 times more money and Luton needed 11 times more money.

That will be enough to convince a lot of people that he's telling the truth as it's something you could probably check online.

The problem is that Liverpool pre-Covid had more than 30 times more passengers than MME while Luton was catering for more than 120 times more passengers. They're totally different businesses.

He was predicting 400,000 passengers in 2022 in the Autumn of 2021 and people are impressed; even more so when he is hoping to have 1 million passengers by 2026-27. If you wrote that down as a business plan, your boss would sack you and advise you seek medical assistance.
 
Just as an example of how he twists things; he compared support for getting through Covid by using Liverpool and Luton as airports that had received help. Liverpool needed over 3 times more money and Luton needed 11 times more money.

That will be enough to convince a lot of people that he's telling the truth as it's something you could probably check online.

The problem is that Liverpool pre-Covid had more than 30 times more passengers than MME while Luton was catering for more than 120 times more passengers. They're totally different businesses.

He was predicting 400,000 passengers in 2022 in the Autumn of 2021 and people are impressed; even more so when he is hoping to have 1 million passengers by 2026-27. If you wrote that down as a business plan, your boss would sack you and advise you seek medical assistance.
Indeed. 1 million passengers....

Today - a weekday - there are 5 flights from 2 airlines, using aircraft which seat 72 people when full. Even if they were full every day of the year including weekends (which they're not).... 72 * 5 * 365 = 131,400

Self-promotion may be a strong point of his, maths certainly is not.
 
Monorail. That's all he has to keep repeating to the bread-line labourers who have been trapped in the capitalist system.
 
Indeed. 1 million passengers....

Today - a weekday - there are 5 flights from 2 airlines, using aircraft which seat 72 people when full. Even if they were full every day of the year including weekends (which they're not).... 72 * 5 * 365 = 131,400

Self-promotion may be a strong point of his, maths certainly is not.
I don't think there's any doubt that, with the increase in flights and passengers during the summer, that numbers can be substantially increased but airlines aren't going to move fights away from Newcastle and Leeds, so they would have to be additional flights, unless they're at capacity.

Leeds Bradford at this time of year have 1 or 2 flights to Malaga depending on which day you're looking at and Newcastle has similar numbers. Those airports are not going to lose out to Teesside and it seems like there's little demand anyway.
 
I don't think there's any doubt that, with the increase in flights and passengers during the summer, that numbers can be substantially increased but airlines aren't going to move fights away from Newcastle and Leeds, so they would have to be additional flights, unless they're at capacity.

Leeds Bradford at this time of year have 1 or 2 flights to Malaga depending on which day you're looking at and Newcastle has similar numbers. Those airports are not going to lose out to Teesside and it seems like there's little demand anyway.

Even taking the summer charters and LCC holiday flights into account, the numbers are nowhere near to stacking up
 
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