Does the directly elected mayor model encourage single issue, personality politics?
It certainly can do, I’ve had experience of it. It’s a good question, I’ve been thinking about this recently over the last couple of weeks. I don’t think really that single issues would take much precedent running up to the elections, but when you’re in office, it’s very much so. For example, there was a big push in Hartlepool to get lifeguards reinstated on the beaches during the summer. A big single issue, and that was something I led on and managed to bring back. I suppose the personality bit comes in leading up to the elections. I think the more high profile you are, probably the better chance of being elected. There’s 11 of us nationally, elected mayor, and I think there’s five independents. And there’s also a Tory elected mayor in North Tyneside, but with a massively Labour-run council. So I think the personality side comes in there.

Your campaign was famous nationally – are you taken more seriously as a politician now?
Definitely. Well, I don’t like calling myself a politician, because…but definitely. That was the biggest challenge I had, to prove to the public that I was capable of doing the job and could be taken seriously, and I think within a couple of months I’d proved to people that. I think nationally it will always be Hartlepool voting in a monkey, but I’m up for election in May, so I’ll be judged on the results and I’m quite confident.

Did you support plans for devolution to the North East?
No.

Why not?
I was taking a very selfish view of things, what Hartlepool would get out of it, and I asked many questions to all the campaigners, the Yes campaigners, of what exactly would Hartlepool get out of it. Nobody could give me a straight answer. Hartlepool became a unitary council in 1996, and since then we’ve gone from strength to strength. We’re one of the best performing councils in the country, the town has changed, it is almost unrecognisable now than it was 10 years ago, and I think putting another layer of bureaucracy, another layer of government in there would just be a massive step back for our development.

Has having a series of senior government ministers from the region, such as Peter Mandelson, helped Hartlepool?
I think having a high profile MP certainly helps put the town on the map, and my election was quite high profile, that’s certainly reinforced that. But I’ve got my own personal opinions on Peter Mandelson, but I’m sure he used his influence in a lot of areas to help the town behind the scenes. But because he was so high profile when he was present in the town wasn’t as much as maybe a less higher profile MP would have been.

And what about Ian Wright?
He lives in the town, he grew up here and I think he’s definitely got the town at heart. I’ve known Ian since we were in college together. And I think he does put the people of the town first.