Top man Bob

That’s the way, lad.

Mr Jones has pledged to introduce community-led local policing boards and said he would use the role to “highlight the appalling financial settlement” the police force has received from the government.

West Midlands Police Chief Constable Chris Sims congratulated Mr Jones on his election and said the pair would be meeting over the coming days.

Mr Sims said: “We are entering a new era for policing governance and I am confident that we will be able to build on recent successes.”

Patrick Burns, the BBC political editor in the West Midlands, said the result of four district counts showed the “near-collapse” of the Liberal Democrat vote, even in MP Lorely Burt’s Solihull ward, where the party’s share of the vote dropped from 43% at the last general election to 3.4%.

In Coventry, the Liberal Democrat candidate, Ayoub Khan, polled just 783 votes, even failing to match the number of spoilt ballot papers (884).