Campaign

Five candidates stood in the election for mayor, one each from the three main political parties and two independents. The Labour candidate for mayor was Leo Gillen, a local businessman who had led the campaign in favour of introducing a directly elected mayor.^[3] The Liberal Democrats selected the leader of the council since 2000, Arthur Preece, as their candidate for mayor, while the Conservatives chose councillor Stephen Close.^[4] The first independent candidate, Stuart Drummond, was better known as H'Angus the Monkey the official mascot for the local football team Hartlepool United F.C.^[2][5] The other independent candidate was Ian Cameron, another local businessman.^[6]

Drummond campaigned on a pledge to give free bananas to all school pupils under 11 in Hartlepool.^[5] He received backing from the football club who paid his deposit^[7] and he promised that he would attempt to keep a local sports centre open, improve sporting facilities, tackle crime^[8] and reduce the number of councillors.^[5] His candidacy began as something of a joke but became more serious as he attracted support during the campaign.^[9]

A supplementary voting system was used in the mayoral election with second preferences being used if no candidate received over half of the vote.^[10] A local bookmaker initially made Drummond a 100–1 outsider in the mayoral election but soon had to suspend betting after receiving a lot of bets from local people.^[11]

Results

Stuart Drummond won the mayoral election defeating the Labour candidate Leo Gillen on second preferences.^[2] Drummond said that his victory was due to disillusionment with local politicians and said that he was serious about doing a good job for Hartlepool as mayor.^[12] Local Member of Parliament Peter Mandelson praised Drummond on his victory and described him as being "very committed".^[13] However other political opponents described the results as having made Hartlepool "a laughing stock".^[12]

Summary of results

Ward results