ConservativeHome's Seats & Candidates blog

Over £12,000 raised by ConHome readers to help oust Lib Dem MPs

Many thanks indeed to ConservativeHome readers for responding so generously to our Yellow to Blue campaign appeal.

Since the appeal started on April 5th, we sought to raise £1,000 to boost the campaigns of eleven candidates trying to gain seats from the Liberal Democrats.

Your response was fantastic, with ConHome readers collectively sending in excess of £12,000 to eleven constituencies as follows:

• Ken Andrew (Carshalton and Wallington) - £1,025
• Steve Brine (Winchester) - £1,125
• Mark Coote (Cheltenham) - £1,355
• Andrew Jones (Harrogate and Knaresborough) - £1,000
• John Lamont (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) - £1,100
• Philip Milton (Devon North) - £1,000
• Sheryll Murray (Cornwall South East) - £1,000
• Caroline Nokes (Romsey and Southampton North) - £1,029
• Jesse Norman (Hereford and South Herefordshire) - £1,000
• Brenda Porter (Southport) - £1,000
• Philippa Stroud (Sutton and Cheam) - £1,510

Jonathan Isaby

How much do you want to stop a LibLab pact?

We're one-third of the way to this weekend's target of raising £3,000 for Tory candidates fighting Liberal Democrat MPs. In the last 24 hours you generously gave £1,000 to help Caroline Nokes in the battle for Romsey and Southampton North.

Our virtual fundraising battlebus has now headed north and has arrived in the battleground seat of Harrogate and Knaresborough. Before you decide whether to give and, perhaps, how much to give, please close your eyes and imagine Nick Clegg and Gordon Brown signing a coalition deal in a week's time.

The only sure way of stopping a LibLab pact is to elect Conservative MPs. Like Romsey, the Harrogate seat is on a knife-edge. Every £ helps. Please give what you can and we can help stop electing Liberal Democrat MPs with their soft-on-crime, soft-in-Europe, soft-about-waste politics.

A video about Tory candidate for Harrogate, Andrew Jones:

Tim Montgomerie

The fight for the Yorkshire marginals

Earlier in the week I wrote about how the party is targeting seats in the South West of England.

Today, the Yorkshire Post focuses on the battleground constituencies falling within its jurisdiction, most of which fall within West Yorkshire. The party currently holds just one seat in that county - Shipley, gained by Philip Davies in 2005.

And of the target seats which would deliver a Tory majority of the Commons of around 40, all but three of the thirteen constituencies in the Yorkshire and the Humber Region are in West Yorkshire:

3. York Outer
21. Colne Valley
24. Calder Valley
58. Cleethorpes
69. Brigg and Goole
76. Bradford West
80. Halifax
82. Dewsbury
95. Leeds North West
100. Keighley
107. Elmet and Rothwell
111. Pudsey
133. Batley and Spen

(NB Figures based on notional results calculated by Professors Rallings and Thrasher of the University of Plymouth and including some newly-created seats)

The Yorkshire Post contrasts how the parties are funding their campaigns in these crucial seats:

Phil Willis to quit Harrogate seat

BBC Online is reporting that LibDem Phil Willis will quit the Harrogate and Knaresborough seat that he won from the Conservatives in 1997 - against a challenge from from Tory Chancellor Norman Lamont.  The seat now has a healthy projected LibDem majority of 7,811.  Our candidate - Andrew Jones - was adopted in March.

Andrew Jones selected for Harrogate and Knaresborough

The seat has a LibDem majority of 7811.

Deputy Editor