With the 20th anniversary of the 1992 defeat on April 9, Progress is looking back at memories of that election. Read Paul Richards‘ piece on ‘the worst loss of all’ here.

I was selected as the Labour and Co-operative candidate for Ilford South in February 1990. Ilford South was number 61 on the list of Labour target seats and we had to win 62 to become the biggest party and get Neil Kinnock into Downing Street.

At the time I was living in Tooting and working as senior international officer at the party headquarters on Walworth Road.  Although I had not lived in the area for over ten years I had strong local connections.

I had fought Ilford North in the disastrous 1983 election, just managing to keep second place from the SDP and with a nomination from the Co-operative party and the support of most affiliated organisations I won the nomination for Ilford South.

I was always confident that we could win Ilford South by a combination of hard work, enthusiasm, better organisation, higher turnout plus demographic change.  However I had to hit the ground running. I was fortunate to have a small local core group of young activists and contacts elsewhere who were willing to give assistance. The general committee established a campaign committee which I convened. One key appointment was a ‘computer officer’, John Cullen, from neighbouring Wanstead and Woodford.

One difficulty we faced before 1992 was uncertainty about election timing, as the Major government had lost its majority and was hanging on to the end. A lot of literature, posters, introductory leaflets and calling cards were printed by mid 1991 and had to be kept in storage under wraps.  Carole Tongue, the MEP for London East allowed me to use her Ilford Lane constituency office facilities.  I also received important financial and material support from the trade unions and I had three hard working agents during the period.

There was some help from party HQ and region with templates for literature orders but nothing like we have today. There was also policy advice and a policy handbook which I in my day job contributed to.

Our campaign was very much ‘on message’ built on what Neil Kinnock and John Smith were doing nationally. I was fortunate that the party gave me unpaid absence for the duration of the campaign and that my job enabled me to have flexibility in my hours. But the pressures of being a candidate and a year of driving from Elephant and Castle to Ilford and then back to Tooting four times a week and at least once every weekend proved difficult and I eventually decided to move. I could then truly say I was ‘A local man with a national voice’.

On polling day itself I enjoyed visiting all the polling stations and then going home for a quick change before the count.   I got there early, hours before my opponent.  I stood watching the bundles in rows building up.   It looked like we were behind until one of my bundles was found to be in the Tory tray.    Then, at about 1am, we thought we had a result and had won by about 250 and the Tories called a recount. Eventually at 2.30am we had the result.  I had won by 402.  Two years hard work and 176 press releases had paid off. My mum dressed head to toe in red burst into tears of elation as I spoke from Redbridge Town hall steps.

At the 1987 election Labour had won only 15,779 (37.5 per cent) votes, some 4,572 behind the Conservatives with 20,351 votes (48.4 per cent). Neil Thorne, the Tory MP for 13 years, was shattered by his unexpected defeat as his vote fell to 19,016 (44.4 per cent) while Labour’s vote increased to 19,418 (45.4 per cent) on a turnout of 76.7 per cent. We had needed a 5.5 per cent swing, and we got 5.9 per cent on a day when and the London swing was 3 per cent and the national swing only 2 per cent.

If I was going to win I assumed it would be in the circumstances of a minority Labour government. In fact we only won 40 seats nationally and John Major had an overall majority of 17.   It took me some time to come to terms with the contrast between my own elation at personal victory and the collective depression of the PLP following another defeat.

We had won by fighting an on message model national campaign. Why had others not been as successful?

Mike Gapes is the Labour and Cooperative party MP for Ilford South