TLIAW: The Road To Clacton Pier

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Ergh.

Yes, I know.

Another one? You really can't keep up with one timeline and now you want to do another?

There's no time limit on Never Such Innocence.

And what about this? A week?


Yeah, it won't get done in a week.

Exactly - we both know it won't get done.

Yes, yes. But, at least I won't have three thousand words to do per update.

Right, anyway. So I'm guessing there's an Essex Assembly? (ASB, ASB, ASB)

Bingo.

And Amy Childs is First Secretary, right? Or maybe Joey Essex?


My god, could you imagine? :eek:

Anyway, there's nothing like that. I'll try and keep to reality as much as possible.

It doesn't seem very possible, but I suppose we'll just have to wait and see
.

Indeed. Now, can I get on?

Yeah, sure, go ahead. Bore us to tears already with Essex local politics.

Not even the local politicians can keep awake! I mean, just the other week, I saw-...

... ahem... let's begin!
 
Yes yes yes. I'm looking forward to this.

Maybe this will prevent Essex from being turned into the South Eastern Storage Area.
 
I'm very interested in this, as I said in the politbrit thread, but curious as to how Essex gets an assembly without the country going full federalist...Though you haven't said it doesn't...
 
It's nice to see another devolved regional government TLIAD/W, especially after Lord Roem's one and my own failed attempt at one too - looking forward to seeing what you do with this!
 
It's happening!

Indeed.

Yes yes yes. I'm looking forward to this.

Maybe this will prevent Essex from being turned into the South Eastern Storage Area.

Your faith in Essex local government is... optimistic.

I'm very interested in this, as I said in the politbrit thread, but curious as to how Essex gets an assembly without the country going full federalist...Though you haven't said it doesn't...

Only time will tell!

It's nice to see another devolved regional government TLIAD/W, especially after Lord Roem's one and my own failed attempt at one too - looking forward to seeing what you do with this!

My body is ready.

Good to know I've got your interest! :)
 
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7th November 2015
East Ham Estate, Brentwood

In his quilted jacket and his button-down shirt, Brandon Lewis looks like any other Conservative politician in brisk weather. This is Essex, however, and so it’d be difficult to equate his breed of politician with the David Camerons and Oliver Letwins of the Conservative Party: this is the territory of working-class Tories made good. Lewis, Assembly Member for Brentwood South, is the young face of working-class Conservatism in Brentwood and this apparent contradiction is embodied in the East Ham Estate – a large part of the constituency he has represented since 2008.

“Most of these are council-owned, you see?” He stops to wave his hand across a street of identical blocks of flats, all warm brown in colour and looking rather dreary against the grey November sky. “They’re not Brentwood’s, though.”

I ask him what he means by that as he trudges forward, battered by a sudden gust of wind that messes up his poorly groomed quiff. The up-and-coming Tory AM waves over to a young couple pushing a pram through the door of one of the blocks that, presumably, he knows. He’s supposed to be quite the face around his constituency, providing that local touch where other Assembly Members would rather be sitting at County Hall.

“Newham Council owns this lot of buildings. Brentwood Council doesn’t own them, but it owns all the land. Everything else around here comes under Brentwood.” I think I hear him sigh, but then he carries on. “It’s one of those technicalities that can really frustrate things for the local council, but they have been trying.”

Trying what, he doesn’t make clear. It could well be a reference to the efforts of the borough council to buy the properties, a scheme that Lewis has made the mainstay of his Assembly re-election campaign. As a former councillor himself, he knew the plight of Brentwood’s local administrators all too well. He’d been a member of Brentwood Borough Council from 1998 to 2008, when he resigned as Conservative Group leader after four years and got the support to stand for Essex’s first Assembly elections. This is all well-trodden ground for him, having been the current Transport Secretary’s “boy wonder” on the council for almost a decade.

“Do you fancy a drink?” he says, checking his chunky digital watch and jerking his head to the side. “There’s a pub just around the corner.”

He informs me that “The Chough” is one of his favourite spots in the area, if only for the fact that it’s where most of his so-called “informal surgeries” are held. I would be remiss to turn him down.

On the walk up to The Chough, Eastham Crescent proves to be more than just a dreary council estate administered from beyond the other side of the M25. In their place are rows of houses, small and semi-detached, that appear abandoned in the middle of the day. I spot a well-kept Triumph Stag sitting in the shadow of a white van, that ubiquitous symbol the “Essex man”. In fact, I see quite a few white vans sitting on driveways, plywood and machine tools strewn across paved front gardens and living room curtains drawn as if the mess outside didn’t exist. I think it looks like a bomb has hit Homebase, but I resist cracking a joke with Mr. Lewis. These are his people and I don’t want to put him on the defensive before my next question.

“The pundits are saying that 2016 might see the Conservatives lose control of the Assembly. Are you at all frightened about your position?” I ask, not really expecting him to say “no”. UKIP have climbed the polls in Essex since the “narrow miss” of 2012 and, with election time on the horizon, the Purple Express shows no signs of slowing down.

“I think we’re going to win it. Of course I think we’re going to win it. But, as with all things, we’ve got to be careful. Underestimating UKIP is a bad idea – a really bad idea.” I nod along, knowing that this is the official line of the Conservative Party in Essex. “That’s why we’re here. This is where UKIP should be making gains, but we’ve seen them off.”

He doesn’t mention the fact that Brentwood South is represented by two Labour councillors who have been holding UKIP back for the past three years, but conceding anything to Essex Labour is seen as tantamount to political suicide. This is what happens when three parties compete to be the “workers’ party”. Whatever the case, UKIP’s climb up the polls has surely shaken Amess and his colleagues at County Hall.

“There’s a reason David’s our leader. I mean, he’s held his seat in Southend with something like a 15,000 majority and UKIP didn’t even get more than, what, three councillors this year? He’s the man to face UKIP in next year’s elections.”

I suppose that means there’ll be no leadership change before next May.

“Not a chance. David’s said he wouldn’t keep on too long after the election and I know my name’s been put about. But, from where I’m standing, there’s no chance.” Like any political deputy, he’s reluctant to start speculating on his superior’s succession. But, does this mean he’s ruling himself out all together?

“All together? No, I don’t think I could say that. We have to wait and see if and when David steps down. Nobody can afford to be premature.”

As he leads me up to The Chough, I think it looks like a pub that’s been renovated into an Indian restaurant or Chinese buffet. The clean sign and general understatement of the public house betrays the fact that, as we walk inside and Lewis reaches across the bar to shake some hands, there’s a portrait of Queen Elizabeth crossed by two Union Flags hanging up on the wall across from the bar.

“What can I get you boys?” the shaven-headed man behind the bar asks. He’s already pulling Lewis’s pint as I lean forward.

“Just a half, if you don’t mind.”

I’m practically incised by the sideways look they both give me.​
 
Very nice. Good tone, really puts you in the moment

Are we going to get some background on how the Assembly came about?
 

Nick P

Donor
You've got my interest, I live just down the road here! :D

Any chance of a map of Assembly constituencies?
 
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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."
 

Sideways

Donor
This is cool. It's great to have another time-line that focuses on smaller matters than world or national affairs. I'm looking forward to seeing how this develops.
 
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