Essex is an odd starting point for 2019 election analysis. The Basildon bellwether is no more. The Tories hold the South Basildon and East Thurrock seat with a majority just short of twenty thousand – like the rest of the county the seat is true blue.
Given the Conservative Party’s tightening grip on this corner of the country it is little wonder that the broadcasters’ gaze has wandered elsewhere in recent years. In 2015 it was Nuneaton not the Basildon seat where reporters flocked to. While the likes of Thurrock, and Harlow, also Essex constituencies held by Labour until 2010, were similarly shunned. But, now Nuneaton is no longer news. The red wall has crumbled and Westminster’s lens is squarely focused on the debris scattered across Labour’s old-heartlands in the North and Midlands.
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