WE will be having a General Election on Thursday December 12th, 2019.

Whether people flock to the polling stations in Purford Green, Sumners or Harlow Museum or not is a moot point (or a Moot House point).

Either way we plan to give a comprehensive coverage of the election. We don’t want to bore you and will try to keep it as dynamic as possible.

We have already booked a venue for a Hustings/Question Time. We will invite all the candidates and film the event.

Nationally, this is very difficult to predict. In 2017, this reporter thought Theresa May would get a majority of 120 plus. Wrong. What we had then and what we may have now is 650 constituencies that present 650 different possible turnouts. There were real anomalies in Canterbury and Kensington then and there may be many more in December.

So here is a quick overview, that we may well revisit at the halfway point and then on the eve of the election.

In 2017, Conservative MP Robert Halfon successfully defended his seat. His majority was reduced from 8,350 to 7,031. However, the number of votes polled increased from 19,691 (’15), 21,623 (’17) to 24,230 (’19). His 54% matched Bill Rammell’s in 1997.

If you judged by social media, you get the distinct impression that Robert Halfon would lose by 7,000 plus and some people are stumped that there are around 20,000 Conservative voters in Harlow and the villages. However, there are a lot of Conservative voters in Harlow and a lot of politically conservative voters in Harlow.

We will go into Robert Halfon’s appeal in depth, later on in the campaign but it boils down to having a number of campaigns (fair fuel, ladder of opportunity, apprenticeships) that appeal to middle ground aspirational voters in Harlow. There are many others, who believe he goes into Westminster to bat for them. You can talk about voting records all you like. It is how people feel.

Whether he is up on the A414 at rush hour or on the Broad Walk, his popular brand of Conservatism will be very hard to beat.

The Labour candidate is Laura McAlpine. Labour have run very respectable campaigns in recent years. Both Suzy Stride (30%) and Phil Waite (38%) impressed and put in the hard yards without really putting a glove on Robert Halfon.

This time they have gone for full on Corbynite. Some might say that Harlow voters haven’t shown any real appetite for socialism since 1974. Mrs T unlocked their inner Thatcherite. After that, the Harlow voter took to the centre ground under Blair/Rammell and have stayed faithful to Robert Halfon since 2010.

Ms McAlpine has really embraced the social media world and has also done the hard yards knocking on doors, week in and week out. In many ways, we have yet see the firebrand McAlpine which we think is in there. Time to unleash her inner Jean! Ms McAlpine has nothing to lose and should play it that way.

What will success be? Laura McAlpine will say becoming MP. Others may say nudging over 40% of the vote (Phil Waite got 38% in 2017).

When we interviewed Jeremy Corbyn in Harlow last month, we asked whether his manifesto would be 1983 than 1945? We will see.

If we could be so bold as to advise that attacking Robert Halfon on his record doesn’t cut through. Even if you are right. Run your own race. And whatever you do, don’t go and stand behind him up on the A414.

We have just returned from interviewing the Lib-Dem candidate, Charlotte Cane. A Lib Dem councillor in East Cambridgeshire. That may be significant. Ms Cane has seen a real Lib Dem revival in East Cambs, as there has been in areas such as Chelmsford and Colchester. Mrs Cane will no doubt be speaking to the 13,867 Harlow constituents who voted Remain as well as those who cannot vote Johnson or Corbyn. She will improve upon 907/970 they polled in 2015 and 2017. If she polls over 4-5,000 then it could be part of a shake up.

This is where we come to Neil Greaves of The Brexit Party. The Brexit Party could be the great spoiler in Harlow. Mr Greaves may be a total novice but if he can run a campaign stressing that we were supposed to leave on October 31st, we haven’t left, Boris Johnson broke his promise etc then he could make an impact. That could be over 5,000 votes. However, the election could revert back to traditional issues and if it does, he may get swallowed up.

There might be just a circumstance in Harlow which could leave the result unpredictable. They all have best and worst case scenarios. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

To be continued.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlow_(UK_Parliament_constituency)