Atypical Tories spearhead party's northern fightback

There was no question whether David Cameron would appear at the roadside to watch the Tour de Yorkshire cycle race on the last weekend before the general election: the only question was where.

The 515km route passed through a string of marginal constituencies but in the end he chose Alwoodley in northeast Leeds, where Labour's Fabian Hamilton has a 4,500 majority. It is one of a string of Labour-Conservative marginals along the M6 and M62 motorways in northwest England and Yorkshire.

The Conservatives are targeting 13 Labour seats, while defending 20 of their own, with five Liberal Democrat MPs also under pressure from the other two parties.

Painful reforms in the 1980s that closed textile mills, steel plants and mines left the Tories with a "toxic brand" in many parts of the former industrial north, says Jon Tonge, professor of politics at Liverpool University.

The West Yorkshire constituency of Pudsey was solidly Conservative for decades. Sir Giles Shaw, boarding-school educated and one-time president of the Cambridge Union, held the seat for the party from 1974-97. Labour took and held it for three terms then, at the last election in 2010, Stuart Andrew won it back for the Tories with a 1,659 majority.

Now, the party's northern fightback has been spearheaded by candidates such as Mr Andrew, who says he is not a "typical" conservative.

In contrast to Sir Giles, who rose to be marketing director at Rowntree Mackintosh, a confectionery company, before becoming an MP and minister, Mr Andrew grew up on a council estate in Wales.

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But he joined the party at 14 after his dad received a government loan to set up his own business. "I am in favour of self-reliance," he says, adding he was influenced by the fact that people were able to buy their own homes on his council estate, because of the Conservatives' right-to-buy policy of selling houses to tenants.

<>The 2010 intake of northern Conservative MPs have almost all rebelled at least once - Mr Andrew backed an early referendum on whether Britain should remain a member of the EU - and have mostly remained on the backbenches.

Nigel Adams in the Selby and Ainsty constituency is from a mining family, the son of a school caretaker, and went to the local school.

Andrew Percy in Brigg and Goole is a local schoolteacher whose father worked in a foundry.

Sheffield-born David Nuttall, Conservative MP for Bury North, joined a legal firm from school. He is now a partner in his own firm.

Even Simon Reevell, the Dewsbury MP who still works several days a month as a barrister, went to comprehensive school in Boston Spa.

In Stockton South, where Conservative MP James Wharton is fighting to defend a 332-strong majority, close local connections have been important. Mr Wharton was born and went to school in the town.

After a law degree at Durham university he did his articles in York, then joined a Teesside law firm as a solicitor. He lives in his constituency at Eaglescliffe, just a few miles from his birthplace.

But Phillip Blond, a Liverpool-born former adviser to Mr Cameron, said the Tories remain a "hated political brand" in the north. Mr Blond, director of the ResPublica think-tank, said Margaret Thatcher's 1980s free market reforms "killed the patient as well as the disease".

<>He said that the Conservatives, at least, now had a strategy for the area in the form of the Northern Powerhouse - a plan that would invest billions in road and rail links to improve connections between cities.

Labour had simply made the region dependent on the public sector, he said. "They thought wealth would trickle up from London but London sucked the skills and talent down," he said.

Jamie Hanley, Labour candidate in Pudsey, has stressed his local roots. A lawyer, he has always lived in the constituency. "I'd be the first MP for Pudsey from Pudsey," he said.

But Labour is not immune to the "out of touch" charge. Kitty Ussher, a London economist, decided not to contest her Burnley seat in 2010 after publication of her expenses claims that included stripping an Artex ceiling because it was not in "good taste".

Mr Blond said Labour, with scores of safe northern seats, could within a decade suffer a similar meltdown there as it faces in Scotland now. "The north is in play. Not for the Conservatives but for the UK Independence party."

Additional reporting by Chris Tighe

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