Nick Faith

The Conservatives do not have a problem in the North. As Policy Exchange’s report, Northern Lights, highlighted if you took the TransPennine Express train from Liverpool to Newcastle you would find that 13 of the stops are in Conservative held seats and 19 in seats held by Labour. The Tories’ real problem is in attracting support from urban voters, especially those living in inner city areas. To put this into context the party does not have a single councillor in Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle or Sheffield. Twenty out of London’s 32 boroughs are held by Labour. Just nine are Conservative. Yet Boris Johnson has won two consecutive Mayoral contests. So it can be done. The Tories can win over urban voters – and it's vital that they do.

Has Nick Clegg handed Ed Miliband the keys to Downing Street? Most political commentators believe that killing off the proposed boundary changes, which would have handed the Conservatives anywhere between five and seven additional seats at the next election, will result in David Cameron being a one-term Prime Minister. One of the reasons the Tories were so keen on changing the make-up of the electoral map was to counter the rise in the number of people living in urban areas across the country. In order for the Conservatives to stand any chance of winning a majority at the next election they have to target approximately 32 marginal seats (defined as requiring a 5 per cent or under swing from red or yellow to blue).