DAVID Cameron's chances of winning the next election could depend on votes in Greater Manchester.
A new study claims that unless the Conservative leader recruits activists and wins votes in northern cities he cannot win an overall majority in the Commons.
Author of the research, urban politics expert Prof Tony Travers, predicts the Tory fight back in the north will be a `long, hard slog', despite good opinion poll ratings.
He sights the example of Withington which now has a Liberal Democrat MP, John Leech. Before 1987, the seat was held by a Conservative MP, Fred Silvester, but its share of the vote had since dropped from 36 per cent to 11 per cent.
And in 1978, there was 46 Conservative councillors in Manchester but they had since gone into `freefall' and ended up with none.
Prof Travers, of the London School of Economics, said even if the Tories do well at the next election the most they can hope for is a hung parliament if they fail to reclaim northern cities.
Weakness
He said: "The Tories simply aren't winning in all the places that they used to and unless something changes the party's relative weakness in northern seats will deny the Conservatives an overall majority."
Graham Brady, MP for Altrincham and Sale West, is the only Tory MP in Greater Manchester. And the Conservatives will also have to start from near zero in Liverpool, Newcastle, Sheffield and Glasgow.
In Trafford council the Conservative share of the vote has dropped from 54 seats to 39 seats since 1978, in Bolton from 45 seats to 22 seats, Bury 38 seats to 23 seats, Oldham 37 seats to three seats, Rochdale 35 seats to eight seats and even in Stockport it has plunged from 40 seats to nine seats.
Mr Cameron appointed the shadow chancellor and Tatton MP George Osborne as Minister for Manchester and also set up a Northern Board earlier this year to coordinate the party fight back.
Commenting on the report, chairman of the board William Hague said: "We have excellent candidates in place and believe we can make many gains at the next election."
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North `key' to Tory hopes
December 27, 2007
Showing comments 1 to 8 and replies | View All
Mr Angry, Bury (27/12/2007 at 08:38)
What short memories people have of Major's last Tory government. It was a JOKE, the early 90's were, in my opinion, the most horrible, awful, depressing period ever in this country
lebist, Blackley (27/12/2007 at 11:22)
Bigmouth strikes again, Manchester (27/12/2007 at 11:37)
Mr Angry, Bury (27/12/2007 at 11:57)
I actually think that the most damage was done in the middle of Thatcher's three terms, ie 1983-87. During the first bit, '79-'83 she did'nt get all her own way and from '87 onwards she was a spent force
One of my conspiracy theories is that the tories actually wanted to lose the 1992 election as they knew that the **** was about to hit the fan big time and if Labour were allowed one term it would simply reinforce the popular prejudice that they are no good with the economy as they would get the fall out from the ERM fiasco
They also had to replace Thatcher who was, by then, seen as a liability but if they gave the leadership to someone they actually wanted to be leader, such as Heseltine or Portillo, it would reflect badly on them when they lost.
as a result they picked John Major to line him up as a scapegoat for the anticipated defeat but the plan backfired spectacularly because they scraped in and were stuck with him
The only thing they could then do was to deliberately make a mess for when Labour eventually got in
I actually think that there was a window of about 30 years when life was reasonably OK in this country, from approx.1950 to 1980, I grew up in the last 20 of those years, and feel that ever since the '80's the country has been going steadily down the toilet
wkdboy1, Woodley (27/12/2007 at 15:54)
markyboy (27/12/2007 at 18:08)
regarding the economy - in 97 the economy was on the up before bottler brown got the job of ruining our finances, for the first 2 years at least he left tory spending policy intact, if not for longer - fact.
the tories are now back in the ascendency.
shame on you MEN regarding trafford figures - you failed to mention that the tories run the council, so by that it means labour have lost even more votes/politicians then?
rammylad, ramsbottom (28/12/2007 at 01:27)
Connor Barrett, Heywood (28/12/2007 at 19:37)