Conservatives go local in final phase of election 'ground war'

In seats across the north of England, as the election's ground war nears its climax, the Conservative campaign hangs on one word: not "security" - the official party message - but "local".

Jason McCartney, the defending Conservative in Yorkshire's Colne Valley, and Andrew Percy, in the Humber seat of Brigg and Goole, use the tag "a local champion"; Andrew Stephenson in the Lancashire constituency of Pendle "uses the same local services as everyone else" and boasts he has attended 3,000 community events in five years.

This may be a less uplifting and headline-grabbing message than the national debate over the economy and leadership - but it is in the ground war in such seats, mostly out of sight of the television cameras, that the election will be won or lost.

David Cameron is being deployed on a punishing final round of campaigning this week to galvanise his party, amid claims the Conservatives are being outgunned on the streets by Labour.

Mr Cameron will campaign through the night ahead of polling day, but in addition to his high-profile tour, the Tories are mobilising activists and deploying computer data in a final push for votes in marginal seats.

Buses are being used to ferry volunteers around the country, activists are being reassigned to the most closely contested seats, and final mailshots targeted at individual voters are in the post.

Jim Messina, the digital media expert who played a key role in both of Barack Obama's presidential campaigns, flew into London last week - his fourth time since the beginning of April - for the final leg of the Conservative campaign.

But the flurry of activity does not change the fact that successive polls by Lord Ashcroft, YouGov and others suggest that Labour is reaching more voters through its more extensive "ground operations".

Tory commentator Mark Wallace, commenting on Lord Ashcroft's findings on the ConservativeHome website, said: "Both parties have stepped up their campaigning as the election approaches. Bluntly in these marginal seats our step-up hasn't been as big as Labour's."

Tory activists on the ground believe that momentum is building behind Mr Cameron and that the election strategy devised by Lynton Crosby, the party's Australian campaign chief, is working.

"I'm not a fan of Crosby-style campaigns," said one Tory candidate. "But the issue of the SNP holding a Labour government hostage is cutting through on the doorstep."

The Tories are focusing their efforts on a 40-40 strategy: they are attacking 40 seats (particularly those held by the Lib Dems) while defending a further 40 marginals, mostly against Labour.

The local focus in the northern seats reflects national disaffection with Westminster; although Tory leaflets contrast David Cameron's "competent leadership" with that of his rivals, the prime minister's image is generally shown only once on party literature, if at all.

In the villages around Pudsey in West Yorkshire, "Save the Greenbelt" stickers are more common than party political ones in people's homes and the issue is identified as the first priority by Stuart Andrew, the local Tory who is trying to hold the seat.

His small team is out at least twice a day across the sprawling constituency, generally in threes. He then appears at hustings, business and school visits and makes calls to individual voters.

"I prefer small groups because you get through it quicker and don't walk so far. Visiting every third house is better than every tenth," he says.

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There have been recent signs in the polls that Ukip voters in Tory-held seats such as Pudsey are drifting back. Gemma Connolly, a teacher, said: "My husband is a higher rate taxpayer so we will be better off with the Conservatives."

Tory candidates are sometimes aided by volunteers who live - and sometimes sleep - on six buses, which visit two seats a time in different regions, adding 100 activists at a time to local campaigning.

As the campaign enters its final stage, candidates and activists have been ordered to shift their canvassing efforts to neighbouring marginal seats.

Michael Gove, the chief whip, last week called for more effort in James Wharton's Stockton South constituency (332 majority), Gavin Barwell in Croydon Central (2,969 majority) and Jackie Doyle-Price in Thurrock (92 majority) - a sign the Tories still think they can defend wafer-thin majorities.

"Thank you for the huge effort. The next 10 days are crucial. We need to support existing colleagues in marginal seats," Mr Gove wrote in an email according to one recipient.

Tory operations are co-ordinated from Conservative HQ by a team led by Mr Crosby, who convenes a daily meeting at 5.45am with Craig Oliver, the prime minister's communications chief, and the key campaign team: Giles Kenningham, the party's head of media; Stephen Gilbert, who runs the marginal seat campaign and Alex Dawson, head of research.

"They've been doing that since the start of the campaign," says one party figure. "It means you catch the 6am bulletins and people doing the morning media rounds are briefed. It avoids a mad rush."

<>The day normally wraps up at about 8pm, although rebuttal lines on Labour are still being sent out as late as 10pm.

During the past year, Mr Crosby's political polling company, Crosby Textor Group, has conducted private polling in all 80 of the key Tory seats at an estimated cost of £10,000 per survey, according to party sources. Candidates are given detailed feedback on their performance.

Meanwhile Mr Messina's consulting company Messina Quantitative Research has for months been building up data from voters in key marginal seats and by-elections. This information is added to other sources to create a voter profiling system.

"He is working out who might vote Tory and what they might care about. It then informs the party on how they target their message," said one senior Tory party figure.

In recent weeks, the party has been using a wealth of information it has collected about individual voters - the Tories use an in-house application called Merlin based on a database sold by information company Experian - to send out targeted leaflets to floating voters.

One Conservative figure said the party had stepped up its direct mailing operation to market particular policies - ranging from better childcare to the right-to-buy scheme for housing association tenants - to interested voters.

Mr Messina is also helping the Conservatives manage their Facebook and other social media campaigns: invoices leaked this year showed the Tories have been spending £100,000 a month buying advertising on Facebook. The social network allows specific targeting based on age, gender, location and interests.

But activists have also continued to augment the digital election with more traditional techniques of intelligence gathering from individual conversations with voters, fed back to Tory HQ, which then sends out targeted leaflets.

In spite of the 2015 contest being dubbed "the social media election" - as was the 2010 campaign - most campaign advisers agree there is no substitute for face-to-face contact with voters as they attempt to win the ground war.

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