David Cameron doesn't need MPs, or even councillors in Manchester and Liverpool, to win the next general election. If I had a pound for every time Tory spokesmen were taunted after last month's elections with the question, ‘What about the Tory-free zones in Manchester and Liverpool?' I would be a rich man. At election time, broadcasters hire in general reporters, who wouldn't give a local council story a second glance during the rest of the year, and brief them with one or two key questions to ask. It used to be the low turnout. Now it's the Tory councillor-free zones in Manchester and Liverpool. The fact is that John Major won the 1992 general election without winning any parliamentary seats in those two cities. Another fact is that the Tories had a good result in the north of England. In places where the whole council was up for election, they had landslide results in authorities, from the East Riding of Yorkshire to South Ribble, where they made 24 gains. Look at the local government map for the north of England in 1996. OnlyHambleton and Macclesfield stood as blue islands above the largely-red tide. Labour's power has now ebbed away to such an extent that it's left with a string of rock pools of power in Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire and the North East. And long after our general reporters have returned to their day jobs, we get the results of power struggles from the councils in no overall control. In the North West, authorities such as Preston and Blackburn with Darwen, now have Tory leaders. There's more work for the Conservatives to do in Leeds, Sheffield, Bury and Bolton, for sure. Mr Blair described these results as a ‘springboard', but then his diving – and ducking – days are almost over.
