Operation Save Emily Thornberry (and our government)

Published: 9 April
RóISíN GADELRAB
surveys the election race nationally and locally

GORDON Brown, David Miliband and Ed Balls twice – the revolving door of high-profile ministers heading to Emily Thornberry’s marginal Islington South seat is about to whirr even faster.

Cue Harriet Harman tomorrow morning, Douglas Alexander on Sunday – who next? 

Ms Thornberry’s shaky majority of just 484 votes has a magnetic effect, drawing the big guns to Islington South.

And the threat from Lib Dem opponent Bridget Fox, who has been campaigning for this seat since the last election, is very real. Ministers are worried. As David Miliband said on a recent visit: “As Islington goes and as seats like Islington go, so the country goes.”

He warned activists: “If we don’t work hard, we won’t elect Emily and if we don’t elect Emily we won’t have a Labour government, simple as that.”

Ms Thornberry could be helped by local politics – the success of the Labour Party, which seized control of last year’s council budget and managed to force through a policy of universal free meals for all primary school children, and the absence of the Independent Working Class Association, which split the Labour vote at the last council election in Bunhill and Clerkenwell, both in her constituency.

A keen cyclist, Ms Thornberry has been a vociferous cycle safety campaigner, fighting for measures to make lorry drivers more aware of bikes.

Ms Fox came close to taking the seat in 2005 and has been working hard since. She’s trying to capitalise on an unpopular Labour government and is telling voters on the doorstep that a Tory vote is a wasted vote, leaving the Lib Dems as the only realistic option in her view.

She wrote a weekly column for the Guardian until recently, has been keeping her name in the papers and has been instrumental in shaping a Lib Dem amendment to the unpopular Digital Economy Bill.

One of the higher-profile Lib Dem candidates, she is considered a “safe pair of hands” with a very real chance of winning.

Ms Thornberry’s slim majority in 2005 was put down to Labour voters disillusioned by the Iraq War turning to the Lib Dems. It remains to be seen if anti-war memories linger on.

Also battling for the seat is journalist and mother-of-three Antonia Cox, the Conservative candidate. 

The Tories have hopes for Islington South, the home of choice for many City bankers. They are targeting leaseholders and tenants, with promises of better scrutiny of Homes for Islington, which manages the borough’s council homes.

Also running is James Humphreys for the Greens, who have a substantial popular following in Islington. 

His wife, Emma Dixon, is standing in Islington North. Richard Deboo, for animal rights party Animals Count, will also be on the ballot paper.

In Islington North, there has been an absence of high-profile, media-frenzy ministerial visits.

Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn, who has held the seat for 27 years, won last time with a majority of 21 per cent, dropping from 42 per cent in 2001. Hoping to make up the ground is councillor Rhodri Jamieson-Ball (Lib Dem), Adrian Berrill-Cox (Conservative) and barristers Emma Dixon (Green).