ELECTION 2015: 'Everyone wrote me off but I can prove them wrong' - Croydon Central Conservative candidate Gavin Barwell on fighting for his job

You could forgive Gavin Barwell for casting jealous glances a few miles south.

While his Conservative colleague Chris Philp prepares to ease himself into the comfort of Richard Ottaway’s recently vacated Croydon South seat, Mr Barwell is in the final round of a gruelling fight to cling onto his slim majority in Croydon Central.

While Philp, a newcomer to Parliament, has potentially landed a job for life, Barwell could find himself unemployed on May 8 and his political career over just five years after he was elected.

What’s more, the weight of the party’s expectations are on his shoulders. Lose in Croydon Central and you’ll lose the general election, the Prime Minister predicted last month. The pressure is on.

"Absolutely it is," admits Barwell. "It’s my job to hold on to this seat for the Conservative Party and ultimately it’s down to me. If it goes wrong, I’ve got no one else to blame. 

"This is one of the key seats that is going to determine the election. But in a way quite like it as well. This is not some backwater that’s unimportant in this election where the result is a foregone conclusion. 

"A lot of the candidates, if you speak to them privately, they don’t really like campaigning. I enjoy it. I’ve really enjoyed these last six months."

Despite being the sitting MP, Mr Barwell is almost the underdog. Countless polls and bookmakers have consistently put Sarah Jones as favourite, and the momentum has long appeared to be with the Labour candidate.

Then on Friday, a well-timed a chink of light for Barwell: Lord Ashcroft’s polls put the Conservatives ahead in Croydon Central for the first time in months. 

Some questions have been raised about an "apparent oddity" in Ashcroft’s weighting, with Mike Smithson of the respected blog Political Betting describing the reallocation of Lib Dem votes to the Conservatives as "totally out of line with just about anything we have seen in his constituency polling".

Nonetheless, it was enough for bookies to slash odds on Barwell, who himself seems bullish. He says: "Everyone has written us off.

"All these Ashcroft polls, Inside Croydon, all the political betting sites – everyone has said we don’t have a chance, we are going to lose. And I’ve always believed there was a good chance we could pull this off.

"We have grafted really hard, we have got a load of new people involved in politics and the evidence is were turning it around. I’m not complacent but I think there’s a good chance we’re going to prove a lot of people wrong here."

His campaign strategy has been two-pronged: exploiting the perceived unpopularity of Labour leader Ed Miliband and selling his own role as a local MP.

 "I believe very passionately that Cameron is the best choice and I think the people of Croydon Central think that as well," he says. "Part of it presenting the national picture as a choice of who you want running the country for the next five years.

"The other is saying, I believe I’ve got a good record as the local MP. I’m from here, I've lived here all my life, I'm very passionate about the place and I think I've made a difference over the last five years and I'd love to carry on doing it."

Home secretary Theresa May speaks to Conservative campaigners on Saturday

On Tuesday he toured the constituency, tweeting photos of himself at sites linked to 20 "achievements".

Only the harshest of critics would question his influence over some of them, such lobbying David Cameron for the drug-driving law reforms following the death of 14-year-old Lilian Groves. 

Others, such as "the 200 young people I’ve given work experience to" and working to avoid Crystal Palace Football Club going into liquidation, are a little more tenuous. 

But he rejects the suggestion that Westfield and Hammerson’s redevelopment of the Whitgift Centre, on which construction is set to begin next year, would have come to fruition regardless of him. He points to John Burton, Westfield director, speaking at his campaign launch last year.

Barwell says: "Yes, Westfield have long had an interest in coming here. But actually it was the Conservative council and MP for the area that got them actually involved. 

"The crucial thing, the absolutely critical thing, was getting Westfield and Hammerson working together rather than competing with rival schemes. We were potentially facing the nightmare scenario of three or four years of legal wrangling between these two giants, trying to establish who had the trump card. 

"I’m not saying it was all down to me, absolutely not.  I think it’s great that Westfield and Hammerson are interested in Croydon, the council deserves some of the credit, Boris deserves some of the credit, but I think any fair-minded person would say this is something that I’ve played a significant role in."

Gavin Barwell speaks to Labour candidate Gerry Ryan at Croydon Central's 2010 count 

The difficulty facing Barwell as he seeks to convince voters he is – to quote is own hashtag – a #GoodLocalMP, is his appointment as Government whip last year. It means he is unable to speak – or raise local issues - in Parliament. 

Alternative attempts to lobby on local issues have led to him being accused of piggy-backing on Labour calls for Croydon stations to be rebranded as Zone 4 and even to another local newspaper launching a campaign for him to stop launching campaigns. 

But Barwell insists his position in Government gives him more leverage over Croydon issues.

"It took a while to work out how to work differently, but actually when you’re a minister although you can’t speak in Parliament you actually get a higher priority when you write to other ministers or ask for a meeting about things," he says.

"So actually, I’ve found it more easy to influence the other bits of the government. The only difficulty I have is it’s not visible when I’m doing it.

"The job that comes first and foremost is being the MP for Croydon Central. Without that I’m not doing anything else, that would always be the top priority. I think most people who are neutral would say compared to most MPs I’m far more passionate about the local side of the job, because I’m from here."

It is perhaps the need publicise his own work the has led Barwell to become prolific on Twitter, but that too brings pitfalls.  

It is not uncommon to see him embroiled in a social media spat, often with a Labour supporter.

He has also had his share of gaffes, such as tweeting he was "delighted" to attend the launch of a Croydon foodbank and – perhaps most infamously – when his attempt to mock a dating advert on a Labour website backfired embarrassingly.

He claims, though, that the online jibes are "water off a duck’s back". 

"There is a small group of people who follow politics and tweet regularly online about it," he says. Their views generally are completely unrepresentative of the electorate as a whole. 

"The only time I get worried is if I’m going out knocking on doors and I get feedback that there’s something I’m doing, or a Government policy, that people don’t like. A few people online who are not representative of the electorate as a whole is water of a duck’s back."

While he makes much of being Croydon born and bred, Barwell’s ambitions stretch beyond the borough’s boundaries. He says he’d like a ministerial position in the next Parliamentary cycle if re-elected, although declines to identify an area of interest.

"That’s not up to me, but I think anyone who goes into politics would like to chance to serve in ministerial office and to make a difference to the country, particularly on one of the issues that I'm most passionate about," he says. 

"It would be great if that were to happen, but the important thing is whatever the future holds, whatever job I'm given, the job that comes first is MP for Croydon Central."

If he loses out to Jones in Thursday's vote, however, he is likely to quit politics altogether. 

"I think I’d do something different," he says. "One of the things I might be interested in is teaching, but I don’t know. There is not time to think about it.

"I’ve had a year of my life where I’ve been an MP, a government minister, a candidate running for election  and trying to be a decent husband and dad – there isn’t time to do anything more than those four things."

Early on May 8, he will learn if he has a decision to make. 

Factfile

Date of birth: 23/01/72

Lives: Sanderstead

Election history: First stood in Croydon Central in 2010 and was elected with 2,969 majority.

Hobbies/interests: Sport (armchair fan and plays football and tennis), reading and travel.

Family: Grew up in Shirley. Married to Karen, a speech and language therapist a speech and language therapist at Applegarth Academy in New Addington and Woodside Health Centre. They have three sons: Jack, 12, Sam, nine and Jamie, five.

Employment history: Studied Natural Sciences at Trinity College, Cambridge. Worked for the Conservative Party as chief operating officer between between October 2003 and May 2006, and ran own consultancy business.  Also served as a Croydon councillor from 1998 to 2010.  In December 2011, appointed Parliamentary Private Secretary to Greg Clark, then Minister for Cities and Decentralisation.  Appointed the Parliamentary Private Secretary to Michael Gove, then Secretary of State for Education, in 2012. Appointed Government whip in October 2013 and promoted to senior Government Whip last year.