Once a former fishing village, Barking is now home to Joe Coral bookmakers and the East Anglian scrap Metal Company. Council estates still dominate housing tenure here.
Demographically, the constituency, situated in the north east corner of London, is mainly comprised of all-white skilled manual working class areas, who abandoned their Labour loyalties in the 1980s. The constituency nestles close to the heart of the cockney world, but also has areas in the west that have become part of the multiracial inner city.
The seat was named the 15th most severely deprived local authority in the 1998 Index of Local Deprivation. Set against this picture though, the area has some beautiful areas of interest. These include the ancient ruins of Barking Abbey which date back to AD 666, and the Parish Church of St Margarets which dates back to the 13th Century.
Education Minister Margaret Hodge, who won in 1997 with a majority of 16,000. However, the seat has not always demonstrated such strong Labour support. The party’s lead was considerably squeezed in the general elections of 1983 and 1987 when its majority fell to just 3,400.