Trading ‘clicks’ for votes — the ex-local journalist making headlines on the campaign trail
A former local news journalist is making waves in his campaign to become the first directly-elected mayor of North Yorkshire.
Keane Duncan, who held a number of roles on titles including GazetteLive in Teesside, HullLive and GrimsbyLive before moving on to work on the Daily Star, is standing for the Conservatives.
And while some journalists around the country might bemoan the relatively staid nature of mayoral campaigning, the same cannot be said in North Yorkshire — so much so that the Guardian’s ‘media political editor’ Jim Waterson claimed Duncan was using ‘clickbait tactics’ to win election.
More realistically, Duncan has taken a leaf out of the book of Teesside’s two-term Tory Mayor Ben Houchen, who first secured election after promising to purchase and revive the region’s airport — which he duely did.
Duncan’s big pledge has raised eyebrows however — if elected, he’s vowed to buy Scarborough’s Grand Hotel, best described as being in a state of faded glory, and return the good times to the famous building.
“A lot of the time, politicians are begging for coverage but this time journalists were asking me for details,” Duncan told the Guardian last week. “As a journalist, your job is to tell people’s stories. My job is to tell the story of the region.”
Oddly, Waterson argued that such a move — a politician making a big claim which then attracted the attention of journalists — would result in local journalists being bypassed in their attempts to hold him to account.
Yet a quick scan of the search term ‘Keane Duncan Grand Hotel’ shows plenty of coverage questioning the viability of essentially nationalising a hotel, from titles including the York Press, Yorkshire Post, Scarborough News and his old title Teesside Live.
Duncan told YorkshireLive: “Once a symbol of the town’s prestige, The Grand today stands tall above the seafront as the shame of Scarborough.
“It’s holding back the town’s potential and damaging its prospects. This is a situation that cannot be allowed to continue. So I’m ready to take bold action. I’ll buy the hotel, using new mayoral powers and funding to wrestle the hotel from Britannia’s hands.
“I’ll ensure The Grand is grand once again, restore it so it’s a building we can be proud of.
“It will herald a new era for the whole town, restoring pride, kick-starting wider regeneration and returning Scarborough to its glory days.
“I admit this is a radical plan, but tackling the problem of the Grand is absolutely essential for Scarborough’s future fortunes.”
But where did the idea come from? The state of the Grand has been generating headlines for years — such as this article from YorkshireLive in 2022, while in the same year, LancsLive sent reporter Amy Fenton across th ePennines to see if Britannia Hotels were any better on the other side of the country than they were in Blackpool.
So it’s fair to say that the Grand’s potential to generate headlines was clear.
Duncan isn’t new to politics either, with his political career running in tandem with his local journalism career for several years. He served as Leader of Ryedale District Council from May 2019 to February 2021, taking the role at the age of 24, making him the youngest council leader in the country. He was later elected to the new North Yorkshire unitary authority.
He’s far from the first local journalist to move into the world of local politics — but he’s probably one of the youngest. Andy Martin, the former editor of the Bournemouth Echo represents the Christchurch Independents on Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Council, while John McLellan, the former Scotsman editor, was a Conservative councillor in Edinburgh until 2022.
Whether Duncan wins on Thursday remains to be seen — he has five rivals including representatives from the other major political parties. According to Waterson, Duncan isn’t the only headline-grabber. Independent Keith Tordoff, who pledged to give 20,000 egg-laying chickens to voters under the tagline: “Conservatives will give you money for nothing — Keith will give you chicks for free” certainly knows how to pull a pun too.
