John Lewis may soon have to find a new managing director after it was rumoured that Andy Street wants to stand for mayor of the West Midlands.
Street, who has headed the department store for nine years and spent more than 30 years at its parent group, the John Lewis Partnership, is said to be preparing to put himself forward as a Conservative party candidate in the election next May.
The West Midlands Conservatives said no formal list of candidates has been drawn up and it will not be finalising the selection until the autumn, but the Birmingham Post has reported that Street is putting in an application.
This week’s edition of the paper features an editorial from Street in which he argues that the region “must be the leading part of the national solution” following the EU referendum vote.
He says the West Midlands has to push through the development of HS2, the high-speed rail link between London, Birmingham and Leeds, adding that that the region’s automotive, aerospace, life sciences and professional services industries “are all now proven as internationally competitive”.
“We must, as we have over the last five years, emerge as a victor from this time of change. And that is undoubtedly a realistic prospect if we play our cards well,” writes Street, who is the chair of the Greater Birmingham and Solihull Local Enterprise Partnership, the body tasked with driving economic growth in the region. Street, a politics, philosophy and economics graduate, retains a keen interest in politics and was a member of the prime minister’s business advisory group.
Reports of Street’s political ambitions come after the former managing director of Waitrose Mark Price left the supermarket and became minister for trade and investment. Sir Stuart Hampson, the former chairman of the John Lewis Partnership, was a civil servant for 12 years before joining the company.
John Lewis declined to comment and Street was unavailable for comment.
