UK election: Liberal Democrats confident of incumbency factor

David Cameron made a low-key visit to Twickenham on Tuesday morning - refusing to tell the press of his whereabouts - as hopes fade of a Conservative victory in Vince Cable's suburban stronghold.

Mr Cameron is keen to prove that the Tories can take Liberal Democrat seats in Thursday's election and are not just engaged in a defensive battle against Labour.

But while the Tories are likely to take a string of constituencies in southwest England they are facing a tougher challenge in Lib Dem seats elsewhere.

The Conservative leader made a 9am visit to a garden centre in the Middlesex constituency, thronged by a pre-arranged group of Tory supporters and with only a single "pooled" reporter.

The party had told the Financial Times on Monday that Mr Cameron was not going to be in Twickenham as part of his tour of the country.

With the bookmakers' odds shifting against her, Tania Mathias, the Conservative candidate, cancelled a meeting with the FT last week. Her campaign manager blamed the decision on advice from Tory headquarters.

The Lib Dems now have odds of 1:9 to hold on to the constituency, demonstrating how the "incumbency factor" will help many of the party's MPs cling on where they are long established.

Twickenham may seem a surprising target for the Conservatives in the first place given that Mr Cable, the business secretary, has a majority of 12,140.

Yet the constituency, comprised of Twickenham, Hampton and Teddington, was a Conservative seat until Mr Cable's victory in 1997.

And the changing demographics of the area would suggest a fair wind for the Tories, as more money floods into an already prosperous and leafy neighbourhood.

Mr Cable admits that the rise in house prices in the area could in the long term benefit his opponents.

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Support for the Lib Dems at national level has collapsed since 2010 when the party won 24 per cent of the vote. Now Nick Clegg's party is barely in double-digits in the polls.

But walking around the streets of Hampton on a balmy spring evening, the business secretary was welcomed repeatedly by voters.

Mr Cable, an MP for nearly two decades, has strong name recognition as well as support from a large number of voters he has helped over the years.

He can also benefit from tactical voting: a vote for Labour locally is considered wasted, given how far behind the party usually comes.

"I'm 98 per cent certain to vote for you, I was Labour - you were once - but I have spent most of my adult life having to vote tactically. Only once, in Ealing, was I able to vote for them," said Geoffrey Hayes, former presenter from children's TV programme Rainbow, from the doorstep. "It was smashing to meet you."

<>Mr Cable said the Tories had spent £150,000 in the seat even before Christmas, mass leafleting most households in the constituency.

"People have been bombarded with material," he said. "But I feel as far as I can judge our support here is pretty robust. There is likely to be some shift taking place, but we have a base that is not just reliant on me."

Mr Cable insisted he had not set up a "Potemkin village" of adoring supporters to impress journalists.

But one woman told him: "You did have my vote last time and almost certainly will this time. I think you are doing a good job keeping the Tories under control."

Mike Weinberg, rushing out of the house with his children, said: "We will be voting for you in this house."

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