If Susan Williams is elected in Bolton West on May 6th, David Cameron is heading for Downing Street, writes MARK HENNESSEY
SUSAN WILLIAMS, who is checking house numbers on a canvass list before knocking on doors on leafy Lostock Junction Lane in Bolton West, is only too aware of the need to get figures right.
Williams, born in Blackrock in Cork, is number 114 on the Conservatives’ most recent list of target seats – just two away from the number that its leader David Cameron needs to have a House of Commons majority of one.
Williams’s battle began over three years ago when she was chosen to run in the constituency, a pleasant part of the former mill town in Lancashire.
“We’ve been here again and again, and most people, I hope, know the face by now, so we’re just filling in the gaps,” says Williams, as she sets out accompanied by her team of canvassers.
Former Labour minister Ruth Kelly, who won the seat in 1997 and held it twice since, is not running this time and has been replaced by Julie Hilling.
Since then the constituency’s boundaries have changed, and “a good Conservative ward” has been lost, as canvasser Trish Morris, a likeable, no-nonsense member of the House of the Lords, points out.
The Liberal Democrats are much on the mind of local Conservatives, following the surge in opinion poll ratings for the third-largest party after leader Nick Clegg’s performance in the leaders’ TV debates.
“Despite praise for Clegg’s performance, and there has been praise, I haven’t heard a single person say that they intend to vote Liberal as a result,” Williams says.
However, Liberal-minded voters could well decide the outcome. In 1997 they opted for Kelly. In 2001 they drifted in part to the Conservatives, though not by enough. “We need a good Liberal vote. If it stays Liberal, or goes for us, that’s good for us,” she says.
Much of the conversations with voters are about the National Health Service, care for the elderly and local issues. And the outside world intrudes even in this comfortably-off district.
The door to one imposing property set well back from the road is opened by a polite, barefoot young man not long out of bed. “I don’t like the sound of the Liberals on defence,” he says thoughtfully.
“I am joining the army shortly, so I want to be sure that soldiers are properly equipped and supported. I haven’t decided which regiment, probably the Duke of Lancaster’s Own,” he tells the candidate.
Earlier this month, 600 men from the local regiment’s First Battalion left for a six-month tour in Afghanistan. Walking back out the driveway, Williams, a mother of three, says, almost to herself, “God, every time the phone rings, you’d worry.”
Williams’s parents, Jack McElroy from Keady, Co Armagh and Mary, nee Kelly, from Templemore, Co Tipperary, left Cork when the young Susan was just six. Her father had found work in Newcastle.
The Irish connections are still strong. One of her canvassers, Mary Galloway, originally from Glenamaddy, but now living in Altrincham, has been a Conservative for over 20 years.
“Back home, I would have been an automatic Fine Gael voter,” says Galloway with a laugh. She once canvassed for Fine Gael TD Gerard Sweetman.
No political novice, Williams – whose husband Alex is also running for the Conservatives – was a parliamentary candidate in 2001 and has been a member of Trafford council since 1998, and its leader from 2004.
The couple were criticised last week after it emerged that he had asked her a question during a BBC election debate in Bolton without identifying himself, though the Conservatives said other candidates also had family members present.
On the canvass, Williams is asked by a man where she is from.
“Cork, in Ireland,” she replies.
“Yes, but where do you live?” he interjects. “Hale,” she says.
“But that’s not Bolton, is it?” he says.
Reassured that she is not an electoral carpet-bagger, without real ties to the constituency, he goes on: "Why does your man [David Cameron] always look like someone out of the cast of Thunderbirds?
“He went to Eton, so what? That’s not his fault,” said the man, “For the first time in my life, and I mean it, I might give the Conservatives a vote.”
Williams passes over the Cameron comment and accepts the pledge. Never argue with a voter.