Of the 650 MPs in the British parliament, one inevitably boasts the smallest majority in the country. In July 2024, this dubious honour was bestowed upon Labour MP David Pinto-Duschinsky, who won the north London seat of Hendon from the Tories for the first time since 2010.
How small is small? Hendon has long been a bellwether, with relatively narrow margins. But the 50-year-old can claim the most marginal-ever win: 15 votes. Poole was a close second, with 18. In his maiden speech to parliament, he riffed on the theme of “small margins”.
Though diminutive, Pinto-Duschinsky’s victory was hard won. Last year was his third electoral run. In 2015, he stood in Tatton against George Osborne. In 2019, he stood in Hendon, losing to the Tory incumbent, Matthew Offord. In the constituency with the second-largest Jewish population in the UK, Pinto-Duschinsky’s win was a sign, much like Sarah Sackman’s victory in neighbouring Finchley and Golders Green, that Jewish voters trusted Labour again after the party’s antisemitism crisis.
We meet on a Friday afternoon at Colindale tube station, in the heart of Hendon. Across the road and around the corner are row after row of new build apartment blocks, brown bricks against grey sky. According to the local council, Colindale is one of London’s “fastest-growing neighbourhoods”, the population having increased by 70 per cent in the last decade. Hendon is the most diverse parliamentary constituency within the borough of Barnet, while also encompassing some of its most deprived areas.
At a Costa nearby, Pinto-Duschinsky tells me he is “hugely optimistic” about the change he can bring for his constituents, while also recalling the “appalling problems” Labour inherited from the Tories. The £22bn black hole makes an appearance.
Pinto-Duschinsky is better equipped than some to grip the vagaries of economic policy. Aside from his years at McKinsey & Company and EY, he advised former chancellor Alistair Darling at the Treasury, was deputy director at the Blair-Brown Strategy Unit and worked as a Home Office spad. A Labour insider tells me he is seen by many as frontbench material.
Despite the change in circumstances—again, he recalls the Tory inheritance—Pinto-Duschinsky says both the New Labour government and the current one share a “seriousness of purpose”. We have a “mission-based government… with real long-term goals and a clear plan for delivery”.
I put it to him that the government’s missions and plans for growth seem less than clear to many voters. He pushes back on the missions—“we’ve been really, really consistent”—and won’t discuss tax ahead of March’s fiscal event. “I’m not going to write a budget in a Costa.”
Aside from the economy, Labour has faced criticism over its apparent electoral strategy of tacking closer to Reform on immigration. Given Hendon’s diversity, could this put his slim majority at risk in 2029?
“I don’t see that trade off,” he says. “Every voter I talk to who raises this issue… wants to see migration controlled and brought down, but also wants to see compassion.”
But “political language” does concern him. “Some of the language we’ve heard from Reform and from the Conservative party is simply appalling.” Alongside fair policy, it’s crucial we are “not pandering to the extreme right. I worry about the Conservative party. There was a time when the Conservative party would not tolerate some of the things that are now spoken openly by the frontbench.”
Pinto-Duschinsky, the son of a Holocaust survivor, is all too familiar with the vulnerability of minorities. The past 16 months since 7th October and the start of the Gaza war have been “a very difficult time” for Jews, he says, but locally he has been struck by “continuing unity and harmony”.
We take a stroll past the new builds constructed on the site of a former airfield. He points out a 1970s estate, then more new builds. It’s half term, and the streets are filled with people who may or may not vote for him next time. “I’m trying to be accessible,” he told me earlier, of his approach to winning over his constituents: to be “very present”.
