Last November, accompanied by television cameras and the BBC’s political editor, Ed Miliband visited Harlow in west Essex. It was a highly choreographed visit. A few days earlier this magazine had criticised his performance, precipitating a leadership crisis – there were reports of coups and secret letters circulating – and this was to be part of what was being described as his fightback. Miliband’s cerebral socialism and appalling personal ratings, as well as his wretched conference speech – the philosopher John Gray called it a “dire threnody to togetherness” – had dismayed many of his own MPs, who were briefing incessantly against him. It was as if, by turning up in Harlow, he wanted to demonstrate that, contrary to what had been written, he did indeed understand the concerns and aspirations of Essex Man and Woman and was determined to reach out beyond Labour’s core vote.
The Conservatives won Harlow in 1983 and held it until 1997, when Tony Blair swept all before him. Robert Halfon won the seat back for the Tories in 2010 with a majority of a little under 5,000, having lost it by just 97 votes in 2005. (He also contested the seat in 2001.) If Labour is ever to win an absolute majority again it has to start by winning back working-class voters in Home Counties constituencies such as Harlow, where unemployment remains high and wages are stagnant. At present, Labour does not have a single MP in Essex, Kent, Sussex or Hertfordshire, and, excluding London, only ten out of 197 seats south of the Severn-Wash line.
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