CAMPAIGN TRAIL:Labour holds a small majority in the seat it took from the Tories in 1997 and there are good reasons David Cameron made a personal appearance, writes MARY FITZGERALD, Foreign Affairs Correspondent in Bury, Lancashire
IF YOU want to find out how the parliamentary expenses scandal might influence Britain’s tightest election in decades, then the northwestern constituency of Bury North is a good place to start.
Sitting Labour MP David Chaytor is one of three MPs due to go on trial later this year charged with fiddling expenses. Chaytor is accused of falsely claiming rent on a flat he owned, falsely filing invoices for IT work and renting a property from his mother.
“People are raging about it,” said Gillian Howarth as she shopped in Bury’s self-proclaimed “world famous” market. “And now they say he’s going to get legal aid? It’s disgraceful.”
It is sentiments like this that have the Conservatives scenting blood in Bury North, a constituency that takes on a bluer hue as Manchester’s suburban hinterland gives way to the West Pennine Moors.
Labour have held the seat since they snatched it from the Tories in 1997 but the party’s majority of just under 3,000 shows how vulnerable it is. Little wonder then that David Cameron took time for a quick walkabout in Bury market on Tuesday, kissing his first baby of the campaign and buying thick coils of the town’s black pudding.
Chaytor will not be contesting the election, and the task of redeeming Labour falls to Maryam Khan – slogan “Yes, We Khan” – a photogenic 27-year-old solicitor turned councillor whose father was Manchester’s first Asian mayor. Sitting in her office, where a framed newspaper clipping describes her as a “proud British-Pakistani”, Khan admits the expenses debacle is a regular refrain on the doorsteps. Her list of five campaign pledges includes a promise to be transparent and submit to independent auditing. “I can’t do anymore than that. When I explain this to people, they say fair dues,” she said.
Interestingly, the Conservative candidate, David Nuttall, is not exploiting the Chaytor effect. “We haven’t gone around doing negative campaigning about how Chaytor ripped off the people of Bury,” said a local campaign spokesman. “If he was still standing, the issue would have had a much bigger impact.”
Not everybody in Bury concurs. “I think it might lose Labour its seat,” said Eric Clayson, a retired engineer and lifelong Labour supporter. “It has left a very bitter taste.”
Greengrocer Matthew Willis has already made up his mind to switch from Labour to the Tories. “The expenses scandal was disgusting but for me, the state of the country and the economy is more important,” he said.
Despite an unmistakable sense of disillusionment and disaffection on the streets of Bury, there are plenty of die-hard Labour supporters to be found too. Leaving the Cornmarket chip shop with a paper cone filled with ketchup-drenched chips, Caitriona O’Neill says she’s voting for Khan. “Give her a chance – why should she suffer for someone else’s sins? At the end of the day, you have scandal everywhere, don’t you? This election should be about the bigger picture.”
For all the talk of the Lib Dem surge, the party’s candidate in Bury North doesn’t appear to have swayed locals. “Voting Lib Dem would be a wasted vote,” says one woman. “Nick Clegg is very Euro, isn’t he?” another says with a grimace. “Their policies don’t seem very solid,” adds her friend.
Khan claims she hasn’t met one person on the doorsteps who plans to vote Lib Dems. “It’s still very much a straight race between me and the Conservative candidate.”