10th November 2015
University Centre, Harlow
From the fifth row of seats, I can make out Labour's deputy leader glaring at Jason Cowley as he verbally prods her. Flanked by Flint to his right and Robert Halfon, to his left, he keeps his eyes dead centre towards the crowd and, with a knowing smile, asks Caroline the question she's had to answer a hundred times since May.
"Final question - why did Labour lose the election?" It is a question that has made countless Labour MPs squirm and shuffle in their seats, but she has fielded it many times before. She brings her hands together, clasping one in the other, and leans forward. All eyes are on her, though Cowley's stay fixated upon the audience, who glare back at him in violated unease.
"Well, can I just start by making this very important point..." she begins. Within those few moments' pause, I guarantee that she will say that "the Tories hardly won the election". There is something almost petulant about it, though the Twittersphere is so preoccupied with this particular piece of political commentary that even Labour and Lib Dem MPs have taken to using it. "... that the Conservative Party certainly did not win the election. Labour is within thirty seats of the Conservatives – an incredibly strong position - and it won't be long befo-..."
"Yes, yes," Cowley suddenly interjects. The dismissal in his voice almost makes the audience feel like he'd rather them not be here, or perhaps that's just how I feel. Picking up his pen, he shoves it in Halfon's direction. "They won. They didn't get a majority, but they won. So, look, just leave that idea for one moment - okay? Just leave that aside and tell me - and us - why you, as a party, failed to win a majority."
Flint, once again, doesn't miss a beat. But, you can hear the rehearsal in her lines.
"Look - I can't say why we didn't win. We've got a report coming out soon, headed by Liam Byrne, which should really get to the heart of the matter. Until then, I think it's fair to say that Labour has done amazingly well, but it could - and will - do better." The applause rises from a few corners of the room, but Cowley still appears unimpressed and the bulk of the audience seem to make very little of Flint’s tepid call to arms.
As Cowley wraps up the talk and thanks his guests, I shift along to the end of my row in the hope of taking Halfon or Flint outside for an interview. Within minutes, their aides and assistants have already shuffled them out of the door and to their next meeting. I’m disappointed, naturally. But, given that Cowley has already pre-agreed a short talk, I wait about for a few moments and mill about the upper rows of the lecture theatre. Behind me, two portly gentlemen discuss the length of the deputy leader’s skirt and wonder aloud about her sexual prowess. It’s not usually the kind of thing that I’d just shrug off, but my time is short and Cowley isn’t the sort of man who would take lateness very well.
Once the lecture theatre has cleared, Cowley invites to sit with him at the main table. Draped in sheets bearing ‘HARLOW COLLEGE’ upon the front and flanked by two roller banners from the New Statesman, the table is clear but for Cowley’s glass of water and a few papers between his elbows.
The greeting is amicable enough, but I don’t want to waste any time with pleasantries.
“Why did you invite Caroline Flint and Robert Halfon?” I ask. Neither of them originates from Essex, so it seems strange to rely upon those two to answer the question of what “Essex man” and “Essex woman” really want. Halfon, despite his service as an MP in Harlow for the five years, is still a man holding on by just a thousand votes and so doesn’t seem to be best-placed to answer. Flint, as MP for Don Valley and as someone born in Twickenham, isn’t the first person isn’t the most obvious person to call upon. At least, that’s how it appears to my mind.
“Look – we could have got someone from the Assembly, but we wanted to try and combine the national side of politics with the local side. It’s not good enough to just focus locally or regionally or something like that, especially in times like these.” By “times like these”, I presume he’s talking about Blunt’s fragile minority. He nods when I ask, pausing for a second before continuing. “Anyway, this is about what the people of Essex want. Harlow is as good a constituency as any – and I should know, I’m a Harlow boy – to begin looking for the answers.”
This self-ascribed “Harlow boy” takes the loss of Labour, particularly in Essex, very seriously. To him, it is no good to just get close to power.
“I think Purnell and Flint are as disappointed as I am, for sure. They’re a… a really good leadership team, but even they know that they’ve come up against it. Essex isn’t the only place where Labour has fallen short. In places like Warwickshire, Leicestershire, and elsewhere, Labour has failed to get its message across about people’s aspirations and about Labour’s positive message."
"And Essex is the place where that would have resonated most?" Enthusiastically, he nods along to the question.
"Exactly. Labour failed to make a huge breakthrough, even though places like Harlow and Basildon were high on Labour's list of target seats. Essex people are voting in Assembly elections for Labour because they trust the local party, but they don't trust the national party just yet because they're not bothered about cerebral things like 'constitutional reform' and they're certainly not going to vote for Purnell's party without immigration reform." I get the feeling that, for Cowley, Labour has walked away from "Essex man". Labour's "metropolitanism" doesn't exactly play well with voters who view Farage as a credible national leader or think they have proof that the Prime Minister is definitely a "poof".
"But what about Essex Labour then?" I ask. "What about the Essex Assembly? Surely, Labour should look at its own successes at the regional level and build up from there?"
He chuckles to himself under his breath before reaching for his glass of water. Shaking his head, he wipes the water away from his lips and places his eyes back on me.
"The Assembly was partly a New Labour legacy project and partly the prophesied vote-winning machine the government needed. When Milburn was Prime Minister, just before the crash, that was his agenda. But, the thing is, that was Blair's agenda before him. Milburn wanted to carry it on - carry it on from Yorkshire, the West Midlands, the North East, and all the rest of it - and try and win back those Home Counties votes. It didn't work then and, frankly, I can't see it working now."
There comes a point where a man is so in love with his own voice, he doesn't notice the person opposite him is gathering himself up to leave.
"If you ask me, I think half of the Assembly Members would rather abolish the thing just to stop being fawned over."