In the early hours of 2nd May 1997 the news came through that the Conservative MP for Enfield Southgate, and then-Defence Secretary Michael Portillo had lost his seat to Labour candidate Stephen Twigg. This was seen as the moment that it became clear Labour would win the election by a substantial majority, and would go down in British political memory as a landmark moment.

It has been echoed in subsequent elections, most recently when Ed Balls lost his seat to Andrea Jenkins in 2015, a night of surprises which ended in a slight Conservative majority where most people had at least predicted another hung parliament.

The fight is on for another ‘Portillo moment’ as Ali Milani, the 25-year-old Labour candidate in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, campaigns to unseat the incumbent MP and current Prime Minister Boris Johnson who currently sits on a majority of 5,034. In the two elections that Johnson has already fought in the constituency, looked upon as a safe Conservative seat, he has only managed to increase the party vote share by a marginal amount.

Johnson is one of those MPs who was ‘parachuted’ into his seat in 2015, as incidentally was Ed Balls in his original seat of Normanton in 2005. Since then he has not put in the necessary groundwork that has come to be the norm for Prime Ministers representing marginal constituencies. Furthermore, every Prime Minister from Harold Wilson to Theresa May has represented the same constituency, though subject to boundary changes; Johnson was first elected to Parliament representing Henley where he sat until being elected Mayor of London in 2008.

His popularity is said to be evident when he walks around the high streets, but with regard to his electoral performance to date in the seat, it seems that this could be that he is a celebrity rather than a particularly formidable local representative. This is a problem that has arisen given Johnson’s recent career change.

His appearances on Have I Got News For You and a generally frivolous, entertaining persona was enough to propel him to Mayor of London as that it not a position that voters take particularly seriously. Bear in mind that in many towns and cities around the world, people elected cats as Mayor and get on quite happily. To some extent this was enough to sustain him as a backbench MP, but now he has a job with greater responsibilities. The spotlight will shine brighter.

The aforementioned shortcomings that Johnson holds may turn out to be strengths for his opponent. Milani is pitching himself to the electorate as the ‘antithesis’ of Johnson, as a young Muslim who lives in the local area. Milani moved to Britain from Iran, with his mother and sister, when he was five years old he first lived in Wembley, but has lived in the constituency since studying politics at Brunel University. The emphasis of his campaign is very much based on his residency in the area, and use of local services. In canvassing sessions he has posed the question that if Johnson was sick, which hospital would he attend?

While at Brunel, Milani was president of the student union and later vice-president of the National Union of Students (NUS). He currently sits as a local councillor for Heathrow Villages ward. His knowledge of the local area may well be enough to give him the mere 5% swing he requires to unseat Johnson.

However, what could turn out to be more significant is recent polls which indicate that voters in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, who voted by a measure of 58% for Leave in the 2016 referendum, now marginally favour Remain. Individual polls should be treated with caution; they are not certain predictions of support but are useful for indicating fluctuations in the level of that support.

This particular race will also be significant to the emerging cultural phenomenon of a political candidate who has come under fire for comments made on social media when they were younger. Around the age of 16, Milani made a number of anti-Semitic comments on social media which he now disavows, saying that he has been “blessed to be taken to Auschwitz and Birkenau to try and gain a broader understanding of what impacts anti-Semitism has.” Such comments have of course attracted attention due to prominent allegations of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party as a whole.

This will become more and more frequent as generational tide turns and more and more of our elected representatives are people who had access to social media while they were young. Indeed, the same kind of story arose around SNP MP Mhairi Black, when she unseated Labour’s Douglas Alexander in 2015.

For this reason there is growing support for some kind of mechanism by which people would be able to ‘clear’ their Internet history when they are 18. If nothing else comes from the Uxbridge and South Ruislip race than at least it might further the conversation of how the social internet can integrate with humanity, and vice versa, in a more beneficial way that in these early years before people understood the tool they had at their finger-tips. In addition, with regard to ‘cancel’ culture, the above cases of Milani and Black are examples of how people can wise up as they get older, and express genuine remorse for past hurt.

As Johnson travels around Britain and is booed and jeered from town to town, it could be that on the night of 12th December the result to watch out for will be Uxbridge and South Ruislip, and that any swing that takes places there could well be the precursor for the national result.